


The Crow

by MarilynMondongo



Category: Naruto, Naruto (Anime) RPF
Genre: Here it goes, Konoha politics, Other, Shinobi System, Slow Build, Uchiha Massacre, bare with me I swear I have things figured out, basically every character will make an apparearance, but yeah, inoshikacho centered, itachi centered, no one asked for it BUT, someone told me i should post this on ao3, ucm, watch out for InoChikaCho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 64,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25824664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarilynMondongo/pseuds/MarilynMondongo
Summary: 'He looks at them in the same way a lion watches its prey, but his eyes can't turn red anymore.' Itachi learns the truth behind his family's betrayal, a new clan is on the verge of dusk.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	1. Prologue

** The Crow **

* * *

The wind blew through the leaves barely hanging on their branches, grey clouds moving in the whistle. Fugaku jerked his head back to watch for a split second before returning his eyes to the route, it smelled of earth and moist, a rain soon to come.

He moved, gracefully, deliberately, his shadow painting the one behind him, his palm ached with the pressure of his nails digging on his skin. It was unspoken, the rule that is, were every clan head had to personally pay their respects when a new heir of another clan came into the world, a mandatory custom as old as Konoha's foundation, a gesture that ensured no animosities between the families that composed their village. A tacit promise of not returning to the old days. The rule, it seemed, was not confined into the borders of their realm nor contained by the statues on the Valley of the end, but for Fugaku Uchiha the gesture was as valuable as a cloud -forgettable on its passing, a momentary masquerade as long as a blink of an eye, of equal importance in the grand scheme of things.

The chirp of the birds made him think of all the better things he could do in such a promising day that, hunted by the prospect of a storm, only increased its present value. He was quick to scratch the skin under his lips as to adjust the most basics foundations of his costume, mildly entertaining the idea of a smile. The birth of an heir was nothing but the reminiscence of the cycle, a round table that marked no superiors, an empty chair to remember the family that had fallen, the ever-present whisper of the humdrum.

He supposed that friendship was a concept that escaped him in its entirety, his clan was not to be ruled by men reigned by their bias and inclinations, those he controlled were naturally inferior on their position and that will always hunt their interactions, while members of other clans will always seek for profit. The masquerade was mandatory not by his personal fundaments and clan doctrine, but by a general ever-present distrust that did not shake after the passing of various generations. The appearance of its non-existence was, by far, more important than its disappearance.

For that same reason, Ino-Shika-Chö was to be believed a joke whose origin seemed to root on the core of that same masquerade, turning the patterns of the original mask into something far more cartoonish.

A heavy growl passed through his lips before he could seal them in a thin line, the boy behind him awakened his pace at the sound, the pause between each encounter of his sandals with the ground became shorter. The shadow of the clan head still bathed the figure of his oldest son, who was yet to be allowed to walk alongside the man he called father until Fugaku deemed him worthy of such position. The route they choose to walk to their destination was longer and more rudimentary than the main road, but it brought the prospect of a delay that Fugaku could not let pass if presented.

What an inconvenient situation.

* * *

The shinobi world had plunged, once again, into the overwhelming peace that followed a war that lasted too long, so it wasn't really surprising that many clan leaders hadn't been sure enough to _reproduce_ until the warlike conflict was behind far enough to give them some sort of… security. On his mind, such a belief was ill-founded, since such guarantee was just as valid as the man chosen to wear the hat that proclaimed him their protector (a validation scratching the bare minimum, solely sustained to appease the growing tension in between the nobility), and to be their leader in such a lesser extent it was laughable.

But then again, the Sandaime hadn't chosen him to wear the cloak that allowed him to stand at the top of the Hokage building with his eyes on the glass that reflected the vision before him. A vision that will lack the compound of his origins, a vision that lacked Konoha's own roots.

As it stands, no Uchiha has ever been a candidate for the Hokage's position.

The wind blew the hair on the back of his head, black strands parted to show small silver threads that had grown in the past few years that he wasn't aware of, and the suddenly cold air made him move his neck against the collar of his own, black, cloak. The Uchiha clan head furrowed his eyebrows, his eyes squinting at the sudden drop of temperature around him, the boy behind him continued at his own pace. His path was not to be the Hokage's path, there was no tower at the end of his route but a building of less importance and further distaste for those shaping the place his family helped create. It was not his path to be admired and regarded as their protector, but their restrainer.

Inconvenient.

It might be, perhaps, Itachi's path to become the one whose eyes will stand before the reflection, his route might end up on the higher tower and not on a building of below importance and higher distrust.

The one he was just thinking of coughed and Fugaku's attention was drawn towards him, the boy pursed his lips during his stop and pointed with his head to his left. When Fugaku parted his gaze from Itachi and looked towards the place in question, the home of the Yamanaka clan head filled his vision. Realizing they had reached their destination, Fugaku turned with elegance, scratched the skin under his lips as to adjust himself, and walked through the path of the Yamanaka compound until he reached the wooden doors, the floor squeaking under the weight of his feet. He was greeted at the door by a slim, tall boy with caramel hair and pupilless green eyes who -in all their masquerade manner- told him to wait for just a second while sending a little girl inside to announce his arrival.

The kid disappeared then, and Fugaku was left alone with Itachi and the boy at the door.

When, finally, the girl returned and requested for them to follow, they were guided to a big room in the central part of the house with brown wooden floor and walls and large windows that illuminated the space and allowed them to observe the interior gardens of the compound. As for decoration, there was barely any furniture around, the pretension of familiarity of a warm and cozy ambient completely dropped. Despite himself not going to such lengths to show his true beliefs on the charade as to behave in a proper manner, Inoichi didn't seem as concern in maintaining the pomposity, which -to some extent- it amused him. Four cushions were the sole objects in the entire space: three red, one white -two already occupied and, in front of them, the other two-, and a petite table with a teapot and three cups already served.

The blonde man was sitting with his eyes closed, and beside him in the little white cushion was a small bulge covered in a blanket that he kept touching with his left hand.

"Uchiha," Inoichi greeted them without standing, "please." He pointed to the remaining cushions.

Both black-haired men settled into their seats without speaking, and Itachi offered his father one of the teacups.

Fugaku, out of habit, rejected it and Itachi, following his father's example, left his own on the small table. Fugaku saw the way his son's finger contrasted against the white porcelain, and it wasn't until then that he noticed the dirt on the nail of his thumb. He glanced at Itachi with a pointed look. Blushing, the boy covered it between his robes.

Inconvenient.

"I believe that congratulations are in order." Fugaku finally said, looking straight at the face of the other leader, Inoichi's lips curled up a little bit, and he slowly opened his eyes.

"Yes, I believe so," the blonde answered, caressing carefully the small bulge. Itachi's eyes followed the movement under the blanket. "She's sleeping."

"Ah, so it's a girl then?" He asked, not really concealing the bored tone in his voice.

He liked Inoichi in the sense that the man was enough of a good liar to pretend he cared for Fugaku's visit, but familiar enough with everyone's way of thinking not to bother in even trying.

"Yes." He answered, a heavy pause following. His turquoise eyes looked at him unblinking, like expecting him to laugh. "Her name is Ino." There was that pause again, and Fugaku felt slightly uncomfortable, but Inoichi glanced at Itachi then, and the feeling went away. "I'm glad to see you, Itachi," he said, acknowledging the child's presence. "Would you like to meet her?"

Itachi looked questioningly at his father with a raised eyebrow, receiving a sole nod as a response.

The little boy got up and walked the short distance between his place and Inoichi's, who picked up and held the little girl in his arms. Her face was mostly covered by the blanket, but Fugaku could still see a thin blond lock that crossed her face. Ino's eyes snapped open and Itachi smiled, vaguely, carefully. And then, in less than a second, Itachi's expression of calmness and curiosity turned to horror, the realization of what was about to come piercing everyone's ears.

She started to scream and cry, her tiny pink hands trying to reach something belonging to her mother that wasn't there, her most basic instincts and needs unfulfilled.

"I think she might be hungry," Fugaku said, narrowing his eyes at the rude baby while Itachi got back to his seat.

"Ah-" Inoichi started when, suddenly, the shöji door of the room flew open, and an old lady in a green kimono entered the room. Fugaku didn't deem her worthy enough of his remembrance. She bowed and reached for the baby.

"Let me take her, Inoichi-sama," the woman said, before bowing again and disappearing with Ino in her arms.

And really, how they were supposed to keep a conversation about a newborn when the newborn wasn't even there?

"I heard that your son has just started the Academy and is already on top," Inoichi provided, pretending that Ino's outburst was just a slight inconvenience and not the thing that literally ended their meeting. His hand reached for his Kimono as to fix its collar, previously wrinkled by his descendant.

"Yes." He replied shortly, but decided to add something for good measure. "He's our pride."

Inoichi nodded, "I presume." He looked at Itachi, "I'm sure you will be a great ninja, Itachi."

"Thank you, sir." He answered, looking at the floor.

"Konoha is always in need of more people like you, that is, strong ones, with a strong Will of Fire." He smiled, "I'm sure you will be an amazing asset to the police force."

Fugaku narrowed his eyes.

"Ah- I guess."

"Of course! If you are this good with only five years, I can't imagine how excellent you will be when you're old." He looked up to Fugaku then, "Konoha is getting a lot of prodigies lately."

"Mh." He conceded, blinking at the sudden topic of conversation but not surprised, after all, the Yamanaka clan wasn't particularly known for having harvested a large number of prodigies on their lines, if they ever produced any, so of course when Fü Yamanaka showed signs of being one they were going to presume him.

"Yes," Inoichi nodded to something no one said, probably just to reassure himself.

It was a common ground, not comfortable and not something that entertained him, but it was a known topic for him, it was just a regular conversation.

Until Inoichi glanced at his son once more, his smile still the same, but shinning with something else. _Such a shame_ that look appeared to say, _what a waste_ , it echoed on his mind.

And for a split second, Fugaku saw red.

* * *

Uncomfortable wasn't the right word to describe that situation.

Infuriating suited more his tastes.

If Fugaku had been alone, or in a situation that did not require him to control tightly his emotions, he would have bitten his lower lip until it bleed, he would have chewed his nails like he used to do when he was little, or he would have punched Inoichi's face through a wall. Instead, he contented himself with biting the inside of his cheek and scratching the skin under his lips until it hurt enough for him to stop.

He heard the footsteps of his firstborn behind him on the dirt road and sealed his lips in a thin line. Itachi, the pride of his family. A prodigy, his own son was a prodigy and was to grow to become a mighty leader who'll lead the Uchiha to the higher steps of this decaying excuse of a realm, which was more, so, so much more Inoichi could say about his daughter or about his precious Fü. So what was the reasoning behind that look on his face?

_Why the fuck was that look on his face?_

It was with the pass of time that he understood its meaning, the realization pouring down on him like rain in the second his beloved protegee sliced his throat. It had been a warm night up until that point when the ambiance around him suddenly froze, the lukewarm of his blood bathing down his collar making the temperature bearable.

_Oh, Inoichi,_ he thought with the remaining of his strength, a small smile grazing his lips. _This is all your fault._


	2. Parasomnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There're worse things than a nightmare.

**Parasomnia**

* * *

_"Is it there?"_

The whisper echoed on the darkness of his closed eyelids, and without realizing he moved his eyes from one side to another, trying to locate the origin of the sound. As if his sole wish will lure the figure from behind the black veil. _It's useless_ , one part of his brain mumbled at him, but he didn't hear it, wanting to open his eyes and see the face of the person that voice belonged to.

_"Is it there?"_ The voice asked once more. It sounded further, lower, as if crouched. Itachi wandered his eyes to the tip of his nose still with the eyelids tightly shut, his command fruitless. He exhaled hard through his nose and inhaled as far as his lungs allowed him, trying to keep the unpleasantry of his anxiety within his own borders. _A slap,_ he thought begrudgingly, a slap will do for him to regain his wits. It was pain the thing that proved to be most effective when he needed to reclaim his mind, it was the physical punishment the tool he most often used to reach his consciousness.

His hands didn't move.

Something almost like desperation crept up for his spine knocking down his barriers, it had been so long since he last felt it reaching his muscles that the sole prospect of its existence almost turns his willpower into shreds to be dragged across the floor. And _why won't you move –what's happening –where am I –where are you?_

_"Is it?"_ The sound re-appeared, its tone unforgiven. It was as easier as to say no, as easier as to open his mouth and speak a two lettered word. 'No.' He wanted to speak, to give _it_ some comfort because he knew that if he says so, the voice, the person behind that voice, would believe him. But his mouth wouldn't open. _Open,_ he commanded, a little part of him thinking how shameful was to actually tell himself to _move_ , to be stripped of the unconscious physical volition that every being possessed, but he couldn't help it, he wanted. No. He _needed_ to speak.

_"Is the monster there?"_ The voice cracked. Itachi's body tensed at the voice willpower. _'No. No. It isn't there.'_ He thought. Loudly. Almost panicking at his incapability to move. His body wasn't responding and he had always counted with it before, with its muscular memory and reflexes, without it he was nothing, he was helpless, he couldn't protect them. And he needed— he wanted— all his life was—

_"Brother,"_ the voice cried and, not surprisingly, his heart clenched hurtfully at the sound of that word in that low, infant-like tone. He didn't know what to do, he wanted to reach for it, for something, to protect it from all the darkness and fears that surrounded him, but his body wasn't moving, it wasn't responding, it wasn't acting the way he wanted it to.

"Yes," he heard his own voice respond, but his mouth hasn't open. "It is."

_No. It isn't._

" _Brother_ ," the little child whispered, swallowing, trembling.

_No. It isn't. It isn't there._ He thought.

And _Oh-_ _please just move, just MOVE ALREADY - there's no monster!_

" _Why?_ " he heard the question.

"Because-" his own voice rumbled once more. But it couldn't be his; it couldn't because his mouth wasn't moving. He wasn't talking - _I'm not him. I'm not him-_.

"-I wanted to prove the extent of my power."

There was a cold sensation that ran from the tip of his feet to his head, wrapping his muscles in waves, setting in his stomach and behind his eyelids. He couldn't breathe, his lungs felt full of stones that pushed him down to his knees as an ankle, chains trapping his feet with its cold metal. He subdued to the task, he was the one to carry the mission. He asked for his beloved to be spared. Trembling was, as it stands, the only viable option.

A sharp ray of light emerged from his right, and he could not remember at what point he had opened his eyes.

He blinked and looked at the window of the room, his eyes were burning, aching from the lack of moisture. He curled his fingers, his nails bit on his skin on desperate attempt to soothe. The realization that it _had been a dream_ froze him as if tied to the bed by invisible ropes. His whole body was covered with sweat, the goosebumps on his naked body noticeable in the dim light, the mattress was uncomfortable on his back. The air in the room was cold.

Itachi swallowed the feeling that started to emerge in his throat at the remembrance of the dream and blinked quickly, twice, to ease the burning in his eyes. He brought a hand to his face and massaged his temple, pursing his lips. _He hadn't been screaming, had he?_ That never happened before, or at least Kisame never said anything if he did, but Itachi knew that his partner wouldn't miss a chance to provoke him in his usual manner if that were to be the case. The last thing he needed was Kisame knowing about his nightmares, it was enough with him knowing about his disease.

He blew a lock of hair from his face and sat, watching his bare calves. He dressed quickly, repressing every thought, scratching the skin under his lips. He was about to open the door of the bedroom they miraculously were able to afford for the night when a knocking sound reached his ears. He didn't stop the motion, already knowing the identity of the person looking for him. And so, he was greeted with gray. Lots of it.

"Sleeping much?" Kisame asked, a cocky smirk reaching his features.

For a second, Itachi entertained the idea of his partner knowing about his dream but quickly drowned the thought under tons of excuses, maintaining his expression emotionless. He eyed the swordsman, who seemed capable enough to tease him but not dressed properly, his chest was bare and the Akatsuki tunic was on his shoulders like a cloak. Samehada strongly secured on his back.

The Uchiha restrained himself from rolling his eyes. From the moment they reached _Tetsu No Kuni,_ Kisame had been walking around with no shirt, his scales almost shinning with the bright snow covering it al. Itachi was sure it was the swordsman way to show him that he was capable of withstanding low temperatures thanks to his skin and his place of origin, a show of superiority sustained with trembling pillars.

"What time is it?" Itachi asked.

Kisame's smile shrank making him look more like a man that whatever he was, but the image was never intended to last for he smiled again, wider, showing his whole teeth. "What, you have, like, no supervision to see the sky and find out?"

Itachi sighed, which was everything Kisame was about to get from him and his awful attempts at lengthened interactions. It was too early for this, too early for that shiny-pointy smile of his, and the Uchiha wandered how Kisame managed to be like this every. Single. Morning.

"We're leaving." He responded, and walked past his partner. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kisame open his nostrils, a wider -wider, wider, always wider- smile spreading across his face, his gills opening slightly.

"Oh, someone has been _nasty_." The swordsmen laughed and looked at Itachi with his tiny eyes. Itachi didn't respond but halted enough his walk for Kisame to continue. "Was it _good_?" He asked him, and before the inquisitive eyebrow of Itachi, he signaled his nose.

_Kisame had smelled him._

And, even as gross as it was, Itachi was grateful that his partner believed that his sweat was there for other reasons than his own mind. Perhaps if he believed that Itachi could submit so easily to his most basic needs, to his flesh yearning for contact of any kind, then he will underestimate him enough for Itachi to make him meet his doom.

"Keep your nose away." He warned, and resumed his walking.

"Oh, come on, you know I can't help it. This baby is as sharp as—"

"—your teeth, yes, you already say that."

"Then you shouldn't be asking me to keep it away," Kisame retorted, reaching up to him with only two steps.

"Can we not?" Itachi asked, looking ahead.

Kisame sighed, disappointed, and buttoned his robe. "You're no fun."

"To you."

* * *

"So… do you know what day it is?"

They had achieved to walk in complete silence for hours much to Itachi's pleasure, the only sound interrupting the quietness being their footsteps in the snow and the clicking noise of Samehada against the buckle of Kisame's bag. Itachi sulked on the fact of not being able to enjoy it further, Kisame's vocal cords moving and producing the sound that will not cease until covered his talking needs. Itachi had no possible escape.

"No."

"Really?" Kisame asked him, his eyes followed the visible white air passing through Itachi's lips, his hot breath clashing with the coldness of the ambiance. "I thought you knew - probably - I don't know - It had been years since you left after all."

"Kisame."

"What?"

Itachi replied by narrowing his eyes.

"Okay. Fine. Don't give me that look - _Geez_ -" Kisame growled, waving his hands dramatically as an innocent boy who didn't know better than to piss off a mass murderer. "So, I have been thinking - _shut up don't you dare_ \- like I said, I have been thinking, you know that back in Kiri the kids graduated from the Academy at the end of the year, right?-"

He paused, like expecting his response, but Itachi looked forward without giving him the satisfaction. Kisame didn't seem fazed by his lack of interest in the conversation, so he kept talking.

"Well, our- _their_ graduation structure was pretty much out of the shinobi system for their methods -it's still is, even when they changed the final _exam_ —" Kisame paused for a moment to kick some snow, "but even with that, the graduation occurred pretty much at the same time as other nations so _Kiri_ could have a new ninja generation to compete with the other villages at the chünin exams-," he snorted, "—which is totally dumb if you ask me, because every class sent, what, only _one_ representative? So they made teams with shinobi that barely knew each other and –why are you looking at me like that?"

"What's your point?" Itachi said, his patience growing thin.

"Today is graduation day…" Kisame smiled, "or maybe tomorrow, give it or take it a few days."

"And…?"

"Don't you have, like, a _brother_?"

It was hard for him to pretend he still didn't feel his lungs loaded with stones that anchored him to the floor vigorously as to sink him in down enough to reach the Earth's core. In happening, will it be enough to feel himself closer to his family whose blood watered the soil he stepped on? He scrapped as hard as he could his skin but the blood of his ancestors refused to be washed. "So?"

"Nothing. I thought you would be interested, that's all." Kisame replied casually, the grin on his face contrasting with the innocence of the statement.

"I'm not."

"Well, I thought—"

_That's why is not your job to think_ , he thought bitterly, swallowing his statement and scratching the skin under his lip. His father has been so good at hiding his contempt. "Focus on the mission."

* * *

She decided right there that her world had pretty much ended the moment Iruka-sensei said the name of Sakura instead of hers, -even if that was probably an exaggeration-, but, come on, it was just _ridiculous_.

"So, what did you say about being with me on the same team?"

She heard the voice next to her, and she felt, more than watched, the smirk on his - _stupid-_ face. She only growled as response and sank her face further between her arms, pursing her lips hard enough to ache. She wanted to cry but her pride forced her to bear the shame she felt at not been good enough to escape the path chosen for her. It was a hard pill to swallow, much more because it was filled with years upon years of delusion fed with the childish belief of _possibility._

It was difficult to encounter failure when there was no mistake on her part, when the sole reason laid at the hands of her family ties. Her father always gave her what she wanted, but in this, he will not bend to her will. The better she got the better asset she will be to the formation decided upon her birth, Inoichi had allowed her to think of her wishes as achievable for the benefits of the alliance.

She didn't know how to handle the weight on her chest, and she didn't even care that the boys - _her teammates, oh god, they were her teammates now_ \- were waiting expectantly some motion on her part. Ino had experienced sadness, mostly the one that you feel when someone breaks your favorite toy, superficial on its appearance and easy to fix with a well-planted kiss on her forehead, and deeper sadness as well -the red ribbon that she kept in the drawer of her nightstand was the proof of that. But she had not experienced _shame_.

Inoichi, for all he loved her and all she loved him, had shamed her for letting her live in her delusion long enough to carve her hope deep in her skin, deep in her lungs. He should have ended the belief of a possibility as soon as escaped her lips and reached his ears, for now, the disappointment was eating her insides and burning her cheeks. Ino liked to believe that she was the type of person who did not perform a stitch without a thread. The knitting of her destiny was calculated as to become a pattern that suited her tastes -but now the pattern that she envisioned was never to exist, was never meant to exist. Was never to be her own.

So, summarizing, her life sucked and she wanted to die.

"Ino…" The voice of the Nara boy that she deeply unappreciated tried to get her attention from somewhere behind her, his tone tried to be gentle as to coax her out of her shield but she was furious at the world to force this down on her. So she resented him. She resented his clan and in doing so, she swallowed saliva and kept her mouth shut.

"Ino," Shikamaru called her again, almost demanding her to look in his direction -because she was not allowed to look somewhere beyond the Nara, beyond the Akimichi, beyond the stone with their three symbols carved with biting precision, tying them together until the end of time.

Her tongue curled inside her mouth and heat rose from her stomach to her throat, an impulse too well known and freeing for her to suppress, "I heard you already!" She snapped, the immediate satisfaction waving its way through her lips that curved up. She wanted more -she needed more, she wanted to push his buttons and torn him apart for his troubles, the young Nara never failed to make her miserable with his presence and judging stare, dooming her worthless. She needed the fire that he ignited in order to build herself up from her torn parts.

Unfortunately, Shikamaru was not to engage. His eyes ripped her up and down two times before he narrowed them, pushing her further down her frustration and rising her shame on the color of her skin. "Don't yell at me. I didn't arrange the teams." Was his logical response, none of her surfaced distress seemed to reach him, as if the formation sustained for generations didn't affect his true wishes. As if none of this was of importance. As if he didn't mind being with her. Such a lie.

"It won't be so bad…" Chöji tried to soothe her trembling being with a kind tone of voice and soft eyes, but benevolence only reminded her of the deception she created and they allowed. She was no child that needed that sort of compassion. She was no child but she had never felt so much like one as now.

"Whatever. Just. Ugh." Ino mumbled, standing from her seat and walking down the stairs of the classroom.

* * *

If Ino believed that he was running awkwardly towards the sunrise with a big smile on his face and a basket full of flowers because of the team they were forced in, she was totally wrong. Like, by a long shot. First of all, he wasn't a morning person. Second, yes, he had allowed himself to tease her when their former-sensei called their names together alongside Chöji, but only because there was no other prospect for them. And even when he usually didn't even bother, that opportunity was just too good to let it pass.

Who knew that stupid joke would get her so mad at him.

_The girl can hold a grudge._ He thought dismissively, opening his juice box. He pricked his upper lip with the straw while absently thinking of her outburst and the sudden pain made him recoil his hand and lick the spot with his tongue. In all his life, few things were of his choosing. In all their life, few things were of their choosing. It suited his tastes to be told his path as it suited his father's and those before him, it was the Nara way not to exert themselves to pursue an unachievable, it was secure to follow the already laid foundation.

Being clan heirs just shortened the chain that linked them to Konoha, but no inhabitant within the city limits had the luxury of freedom. It was bad enough that Inoichi succumbed to Ino's fairytales and allowed them to exist for such a long period of time, but Shikamaru supposed that it wasn't Inoichi's fault the situation that sparked Ino's desire for a change. It was Sakura's eternal fault, as it often was when it came to Ino's desitions. Shikamaru was not enticed to allow such twisted delusions on his team, but little say had he on the source of her inspiration. What he knew was that it pushed her forward, and that was all he could ask for. Still, if Sakura ever became a problem...

In all honesty, it seemed rather monotonous -not at all out of the ordinary- for the three of them being together, waiting, the only thing that made it barely newer was their shared lack of knowledge on how the face of their new teacher was.

But Shikamaru could admit that he understood Ino to some extent (some little, very far away extent), she was never too pleased with hanging out with them (him, if he was completely honest), and he wasn't looking forward to hanging out with her either. So the prospect of having another teammate other than Ino it seemed… well, it seemed quite good. But good doesn't automatically translate to profitable, so there.

"Hello, team." The voice came from out of nowhere and Shikamaru gasped, blinking quickly to put himself out of the stupor. He glanced at Chöji out of habit and was relieved to see that he was just as shocked as he was. Ino shrieked and her voice rumbled in his ears like a snake thanks to her high pitched voice that he will forever find maddening. The tall man smirked. He had a beard and a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. He was looking at them with a smug look on his face, a smug look that Shikamaru didn't quite like because it meant that he enjoyed their reaction, and thus, would sneak up on them again.

"Sorry, it wasn't my intention to scare you." None of them were stupid enough to fall for that but also they were ashamed enough not to call him out on it. "My name is Asuma. Sarutobi Asuma, and I will be your sensei." The man, Asuma, continued.

"You?" Ino was the first one to respond in her own sort of way and, while Shikamaru knew her well enough to know that the question was out of curiosity and not an insult in particular, -although Ino didn't know how to speak without a jab because she was Ino and she was infuriating and such a _girly girl_ \- the man in front of them didn't.

"Yeap." He replied, scratching his beard.

That was… well, Shikamaru expected something else. He expected or hoped. Sometimes he couldn't really differentiate between the two.

"Sarutobi?" He blinked, looking at their new teacher up and down, trying to calculate an estimated age for him and therefore… "you mean that-"

"Let's get something out of the way," the man interrupted, calm but steady. "I'm not my father." It was a response as well as a closure, Shikamaru couldn't believe that he of all people would be the one to piss him off. Logically, it shouldn't surprise him either.

None of them were sure how to continue, it was clear by the way silence settled between the three of them after such declaration.

It was an open secret that the three of them would end up together in a team, much to Ino's displeasure, but having the Hokage's son to be the one teaching them what they were supposed to be taught took him by surprise to almost dropping his empty juice box. Shikamaru truly didn't know if it meant that they had high hopes or they were just that desperate. Although to be fair, wasn't the Sarutobi clan the one supposed to prepare them always? Maybe he was reading too much into something that wasn't that deep to begin with. As their teacher said, Sarutobi Asuma wasn't Sarutobi Hiruzen.

But also Sarutobi Asuma was, in fact, the Hokage's son.

"So, uhm…" Asuma scratched the back of his head like a nervous response to their silence, "presentations would be nice."

A pregnant pause, and then... "well, hard to top _that_ one." It was Ino. Of course, it was Ino. And just as fast as the tension grew between the newly formed Team 10 as a mist that engulfed them at their leader's statement, it disappeared at Ino's puff of wind. Like that, just like that. An inappropriate response that made everyone nervous for a split second and relaxed in what followed.

Asuma must have not suspected such a response, so he laughed. Hard. The type of laugh that should have made him cough. Chöji giggled because he was so easy to please, but he merely blinked at her.

"Oh, well. Maybe not the best introduction I have given." He chuckled, looking at Ino and taking the cigarette out of his mouth to point at her with it. She furrowed her eyebrows like the gesture was a personal offense against her, but Shikamaru knew by the way Asuma smirked and put the cigarette in his mouth again that he liked her. "You go next."

She smirked and opened her mouth. He stopped listening. He knew them well enough not to pay attention and still reply when a question was asked. He wasn't happy but he will get used to it, to Asuma, to the team, and more importantly, to Ino. He was prepared to get used to things he never wanted but was given, and something told him he will never break that cycle.

But really, after how horrible the day started and how… average it seemed to end, maybe, maybe there was hope.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Both the Kiri system to send teams to compete in the chünin exams -Kisame's explanation that is-, and Ino's reaction and further interactions with the newly formed Team 10 have no sustenance in canon material and were invented by me (although the Team 10 interaction was inspired by the -filler- anime material) for plot devices.
> 
> Another thing to point out, Kisame didn't know canonically about Sasuke's existence until the 146 chapter of the Naruto manga where he meets him. I completely erased that fact from this fiction in order to make the interactions between both Kisame and Itachi more awkward and full of tension, it might be of no importance for some, but is a good thing to clarify.
> 
> I'll recommend to those who read the first chapter the first time I posted it to go back and read it again since I changed a lot of things while re-writing the original story. It would be marvelous to know your thoughts of the chapter and Konoha in general!


	3. The red Ribbon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some memories hurt more than the sharpest of kunais, Shikamaru wonders what that pain will bring to their team.

**The red ribbon**

* * *

It shouldn't have surprised him when that tiny spark of hope turned into a wildfire and burned itself out of existence. Really. Out of the three of them, he should have known better, he should have known that there is always a secret scheme, a truth to uncover, a game to play. He should have known but he didn't, or rather, he ignored it in favor of attending to his hysterical companions, whose fears of being left out convinced him to begin a test that, within himself, he knew was fruitless.

Shikamaru has never seen a gënin squad of only two members, not once in all his years of council meetings that he now regrets not paying attention to, and that should have been a signal, that should have made him suspicious of Asuma's words but it didn't. Because he let himself be infected by the doubt and fear that his teammates had and that cost him his hope.

And to be honest? The three of them couldn't have been more stupid, knowing that their fathers had been on the same team since _gënin_ days. At least he fabricated himself an excuse. Shikaku would probably tell him that it made it even worse.

" _Here's the deal,"_ Asuma had said, _"I hid some things around the training ground, the first two of you who can bring one of the objects to me stays."_ He paused, looking at their twisted faces. _"The other one is gone."_

He had never said what kind of objects they were looking for and none of them had asked, Chöji pushing him forward so he would start the search and not stay lazily behind. Chöji liked to play fair and he wasn't going to let him surrender just to have more hours of sleep. The universe hated him. Kamisama especially. But still, he searched for something in total blindness because what on earth was he supposed to look for, he searched with his heart hammering in his chest and biting his upper lip while Chöji's presence frantically begged him to look. He didn't want to leave his best friend alone.

It was such a weird thing, a weird and fragile thing he could turn it into shreds by stretching it too much or using a little bit of strength. It was impossible for him to overlook, his bright crimson color moving with the wind, entangled in the branch to which it was tied. He was the last one to return, well past noon because he forgot the timeline.

But he wasn't the one without an object.

Ino was standing still, the sun cascading down her form roughly, making her face harder, somber, almost ugly. She was looking not at him but at the thing he was wearing around his wrist, he supposed it was because she realized what it meant, but Shikamaru wasn't sure Asuma appreciated more a task completed out of time than following his established limits.

Chöji relaxed his shoulders at seeing him but didn't smile.

It was like something had hit her because, before he could understand how or why, she was in front of him in a blur. "This is mine!" She yelled at him, trying to take the cloth with her nails.

"What?" He pushed her, without being able to believe her reaction. "No, it isn't! I found it."

"Give it!" She yelled again, trying to grab him by the collar of his shirt.

"Stop it!" He retaliated by slapping her hands away. "Get over it Ino, you lost!"

He should have known.

"I said is mine!" She jumped at him, ready to kick his face and punch his blood out of his body if her expression was any indication. But Chöji got in the way and grabbed her by the leg, turning her in the air and making her fall to the floor.

"Stop!" He screamed, begged. "Ino, _please_ , stop!"

"No!" She jumped to her feet again. "You stole it!"

Nothing was making any sense and that was when he finally, finally knew. She was trying to run to him once more, Chöji looking more and more exasperated by the second, trying to pin her down. "This was Sakura's." He mumbled. It wasn't a question but a statement that left a sore taste in his tongue.

Ino's eyes flew open, her eyebrows reaching her hairline, perhaps surprised at the fact that _he knew_ , that he remembered that she once had something like he and Chöji do. Because it didn't matter how many girls and boys were all over Ino she always seemed alone.

"You stole it." She looked defeated. Chöji let go of her wrists.

"I did not." And how many times could this piece of cloth broke her heart, he wondered. "But is yours." He looked at her, forcing himself to shrug his shoulders, and stretched his hand for her to take the ribbon. Ino used no breath on doubting, her fingers frenetically disentangled the red cloth she loved so much from the wrist of the boy she didn't even appreciate, her nails scraping his skin on their urgency. Once the task was complete, she was decent enough to look at him, but no word escaped her mouth, no gratitude or venom passed through her lips, the only movement she allowed was a swallow.

"You guys sure suck at this." Asuma appeared from the shadows where the three of them knew he was watching but forgot, making them gasp in surprise, the smug expression returning to his face. "Like, for real." He could practically hear the sigh of exasperation his father would make. "I see we have our winners," Asuma continued, walking more and more into the light, glancing at Chöji and Shikamaru respectively.

"The red ribbon is Ino's." He said matter of factly, winning expressions of disbelief of everyone in Team 10.

"What?" It was Ino and Asuma whose voices collided, the tone of voice of the kunoichi shattering Shikamaru's eardrum. There was no lie on Shikamaru's statement, he was solely saying a proven fact. Regardless of him bringing it or not, the cloth was Ino's.

"I said-"

"I don't want it."

_Ah… what?_ It was his turn to look at her in disbelief. Asuma seemed incredulous, almost upset. Chöji was clenching the doll he had in his hands so tightly he could have broken it. (Shikamaru realized that the doll seemed strangely familiar to him. And it seemed strangely familiar to him because it was his. It used to be his. But he didn't remember that until one night when the two of them were eating at Ichiraku. Ino not surprisingly absent. His hand on his chin and his teeth clenched).

"I don't want… I don't want to be in this team if it means…" she was fighting with the words, "you found it, you stay." It was definitive. For Ino to go as far as to shatter the formation that generations upon generations of their families created and perfected was a childish move, how far could she go for the sake of a memory? How far could she go for the ghost of someone who left her in the dust and spat on her bond without stoping to consider? How much more of herself she will give up in order not to be lonely?

"No." He said, furrowing his eyebrows. The thought of Ino quitting made his stomach twist with repulsion. She was a stubborn girl, but he never thought of her as weak-minded. "You're not to do this." His face twisted to reflect his internal thoughts, he was well aware that it was better to let her do as she pleased, it would serve her right for putting them in this position, but he will never hear the end of it from Shikaku if he allowed her to quit. He owned Inoichi this much.

"What did you just said?" This. This he could work with. An angry Ino. He could handle an angry Ino, he was used to this part of her more than any other. She was bruised in her ego and wanted to retaliate by throwing the pieces off the board and stomping them on the floor with enough force to crack them. She wanted to make a statement, she wanted to prove something, but what she was proving was far away from her intentions, for all Shikamaru could see was her stupidity.

He opened his mouth to speak his truth and his harsh words were received with her shocked expression, red color tinted her skin from the tip of her ears to the end of her neck -as far as Shikamaru could see- and water gathered in the corner of her eyes but no tear was spilled, her hatred for him deepened but also filled her with the resolution of not letting him see her crack further.

Ino bit her lips and shut her eyes harshly, sucking the air as if to let him without oxygen. "Fuck you." She whispered and opened her eyes in a slow motion, her eyes shone with disgust, as if all her desire was to set him on fire with the slowness of an old lady. She made a step towards him, ready to lash out her poisonous tongue, "fuck you, Shikamaru."

"Stop." Asuma's voice wasn't a scream but it felt like one regardless, Ino had the decency of looking embarrassed and Shikamaru mirrored her expression when Asuma's eyes bore a hole in his skull. "None of you is leaving this team." He deadpanned, "but I will have to have a talk with your fathers regarding this type of behavior." The man grabbed Ino by her shoulder, it seemed menacing enough for the temperature to drop. "You are not children anymore, you can't just quit because you didn't like something. You can't just walk away."

(In the future, in a distant point that none of them could even imagine back then, Shikamaru will shout those same words to her, his heart trying to break free from his ribs. But she kept walking.)

_"Your pride must be bigger than the one of your enemies because you would never let yourself be killed by someone inferior. But your pride must never be bigger than Konoha."_ His father said to him when he was little, he said it so casually that Shikamaru didn't think it was actually important, moreover considering that at the time the man was drunk. Shikaku never said that while sober.

"What about your clan? Does that person you cling so much to worths more than them?" Asuma pounded on her buttons to crack her and get her through her childishness, but Shikamaru knew better than to believe himself free of a scolding that will undoubtedly come. He glanced at the sky because it was better than watching Ino being stripped of her self-worth by a man superior enough to be allowed to do so. He still was repulsed by her reaction, but he doubted that resigning was a real intention on her part.

Maybe it was Shikamaru's reaction that added seriousness to what would have been otherwise a fleeting matter, an empty threat, a simple jab. When it came to Ino it was easier for him to being carried away with the distastefulness of her presence, as it was easier for her to simply use him to project her insecurities. They were a ticking bomb thrown at their jönin sensei in the hopes of being defused, it was impossible for him not to pass them regardless of their failure, three angry clans will not allow such inconvenience, whether it was both Ino and Shikamaru's fault or not.

Bureaucracy had saved their necks and Hitae Ate, to pay with a wounded pride didn't seem high in the grand scheme of things, but it was hard for Shikamaru not to think of the shame it could bring to their clan. It was a good thing their fathers were in charge to clean up their messes and archive the issue without much of a problem, but the hand that helped them carry on will undoubtedly slap them for their troubles as well.

There was no hope for this team.


	4. The mere picture of solitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solitude.

** The mere picture of solitude **

* * *

_Tetsu no Kuni, putrid cave._

There was no plausible way for him to stop the sound on time or the source of it -which would be, undoubtedly, much better-, nor way to pretend to be doing something else as to disguise his action, the sound will undoubtedly resound on the walls of the cave and its echo would reach his partner's ears even without the man outstanding senses. He noticed, because there was no way of containing it, the tremor of his body, and he was familiar with the burning and itching sensation that started in his chest and went up all way to his throat.

The repetition of moments like these were already a part of their routine, so he didn't even bother in concealing it, choosing instead to expel all the air contained in his pharynx in the palm of his right hand. As expected, Kisame tilted his face to see him and smiled, showing the shark teeth that decorated his mouth, fixing his smalls, intense eyes on the hand pressed to his mouth.

"That one was a strong one, hu?" He asked him.

Itachi rolled his eyes, still coughing, using his state as an excuse not to reply to such idiotic question. Nothing had ever stopped him from ignoring Kisame before, but it proved to be far better when doing so with a pretext. This one, however, was less a pretext and more a valid reason, for he couldn't have responded even if he was compelled to do so.

Kisame did not speak again and devoted himself to observe Itachi while he spat saliva in the sleeve of his tunic, his mischievous eyes gleaming with the vision before him. Itachi could practically see the rejoice the man felt from seeing him in the pathetic picture of his sickness. The gray on his face was slightly different from the stone behind him, his expression dyed with lots of 'I told you', the previous warning to look for a doctor before leaving Amegakure fresh in their minds.

The cough stopped after a while and Itachi ran his hand up and down his throat. Kisame looked at him grinning -infuriating Itachi in a way only Kisame could-, and reached for his backpack. He could taste that something was bitter and really close to blood but he swallowed it before he had the reflection to vomit it out of his body. There was no award into showing his weakness, it might feed Kisame's underestimation, but Itachi was in no position to exploit this setback when he was reduced to a mess. He heard water, and when he glanced at Kisame again he was greeted with the view of a thermos being offered to him.

It was warm tea, Itachi couldn't believe he was actually grateful.

"Too much for an intelligence mission, right?" Kisame chuckled at a joke that was lost to Itachi.

Of course, both knew this search for possible bijüs in the Iron country would end in this situation -minus Itachi's decay-: Both of them bounded to hide as to avoid death by the cold temperatures of the hostile country and having found nothing. The idea of a samurai -those without a chakra system-, possessing a jinchüriki was ridiculous, but Pein did not want to overlook anything and have problems afterward just because they assumed that their residents did not have the strength or technology to seal one.

As it stands, they did not have the strength or technology to seal one. Itachi curled his tongue with displeasure at the meaningless of their mission. "Mh." It was the only thing Itachi answered, parting his lips from the thermos just enough to make that noise and then bringing it closer again, taking another sip of the tea.

Kisame growled and detached his back from the wall to look at the sky; he made a quick click with his tongue and reclined against it again. "It doesn't look like it's going to stop soon, I think we'll have to leave with the storm still active."

"All right," he answered flatly, his voice hoarse.

A pause. A much-needed pause in their conversation that allowed him to regain control over his lungs. He could hear the constant parade of drops of water falling through the stalactites to the floor, Kisame's breath through his teeth -as if his nose served solely for decoration purposes. The wind whistling low outside. Itachi shivered.

"Tell me, sweet Itachi," Kisame said, shattering the silence around him with the echo, Itachi always wondered if it was because he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts. "Aren't you a little bit curious about how your brother is doing?"

Itachi hated the adjective but despised the question even more, he forced himself to swallow the distaste that dropped like a stone on his throat, his vocal cords close to breaking. "No." He replied, his voice rough, lips reaching for the thermos again.

"Yes. That's what I thought you would say." Kisame nodded, looking at some point in the distance.

Itachi was curious to know why would he ask something he already knew the answer to, was his curiosity strong enough to risk their partnership? Or was Kisame just annoying him out of habit, looking for ways to push them closer to his limits.

"It's just weird."

Itachi took one more sip of the tea before returning the thermos to Kisame, who watched him while he stood. "I don't talk about Sasuke."

"That doesn't mean you don't want to know about him." Kisame put his thermos in his backpack again, his movements slow, his eyes suspiciously focused on the task, like expecting an attack.

Itachi pursed his lips. "No. It doesn't."

"So-"

"So I don't talk about Sasuke." He repeated the phrase so carved in his tongue he could practically taste it. The name of his little brother almost drawing blood out of it. The flavor of the tea still lingered on the back of his mouth, almost washing away the taste of his disease. Kisame stood with his back turned to Itachi, inviting him to try his luck to take him on. Itachi furrowed his eyebrows. Akatsuki in its entirety was to believe he saw his little brother as a burden, someone he eventually will kill when the younger Uchiha proved himself worthy enough. But Itachi wasn't -nor he was allowed to be-, stupid enough as to believe the mask was not unbreakable. All of the members in the group were not average jönin, and the truth was that every single one of the members of Akatsuki were more than aware that, despite the reason, Itachi had let him live.

He had given him a chance.

And that's more than any of them could say they did.

* * *

Shinobi were meant to kill. It was a true statement as it was a stupid notion to say out loud both because the shinobi who'll hear it will be familiar with it as it would be dangerous for any civilian to see them in that light. There were few things of equal importance as to be at peace with the commoners by keeping them away from shinobi's matters, for those without chakra system were superior in numbers, and the sheer power of persistency was not to be ignored.

There was no secrecy about their nature tho, Ino often wondered what it was so important to maintain a facade already inexistent, but a prospect and the knowledge were two things of deep discrepancies between each other, and while one kept the fragile peace, the other sank the world in the most basic of its natures. War. A frightening concept. Ino hoped to never be forced to witness its unleash.

A yawn escaped her lips and she stretched her back, the grass under her making a sound at the movement, caressing the skin not covered by the bandages around her torso. She was tired and sore from the mission they were paid to do, and not for the first time that day she wondered why a person would need so many holes dug in their backyard. Now she was dirty from the roots of her hair to the nails of her toes and smelled like mud, her muscles barely responding to her commands. She wasn't used to be moving that much in such a short period of time.

It might have been an exaggeration to obsess over the concept of their fragile existence when doing tasks as hard as to use a shovel, the result of her effort for purposes not confided on her, but she could not take her mind out of the possibility of some of them being used to dispose of bodies. It has been long since one of her relatives has been killed and the funeral was held up to the north of the village where the cemetery was located, but the sound of the shovel against the dirt was the same in any ground.

"Your stamina is awful." The shadow of his face over hers blocked the sun out of view.

"Leave me alone, Asuma-sensei."

"I never said you could rest."

"But I finished my work."

"Oh…" he blinked, looking at the dirt she had dug out from many -too many- parts of the yard. "I see." His shadow did not disappear from above her and she was still forced to wear it for passing seconds until he inspected her part of the deal with a bored expression. He sucked at his teeth and made a weird sound with his throat, finally acknowledging her eyes with his own. "Then fill them up again."

"Wh- what? Why?" She whined, and even for her own ears sounded childish, but she did not look away when he smirked and made her flush red in her entirety.

"Because you finished your work." He replied, his smug expression plastered on his face, unwavering, his hand reaching for his box of cigarettes on his vest pocket. His figure still above hers. "And because our clients changed their minds, they don't want the holes anymore." The cigarette was lit with a lighter that she did not see but heard, Asuma exhaled a cloud of smoke that hit her face.

"It's not fair." She complained, a barely contained grunt deformed her expression for statement purposes. "Who does this client think it is?" The grass on her back made her skin itch, she squinted her eyes and brought a hand to her face to protect her vision from the sudden burst of light Asuma's recoil forced on her.

"Someone who believes you need to bit the dust a little bit more before speaking in such a tone to your commander officer." Asuma's tone was playful, there was no amount of dust-bite that will allow her to ever engage in such parameters of conversation with a superior. He took another drag of his cigarette and stopped breathing, keeping the nicotine a little longer on his mouth. He exhaled without looking at her, his tongue licked his lips. "Go."

She repressed a complaint that was making its way up her stomach out of habit and stood with quick motions. Her head spun at the suddenness of the movement and her stomach growled on hunger. She scratched her lower back to relieve the itch and glanced miserably around her. Both Chöji and Shikamaru were digging their own holes at opposite parts of the field, their figures barely visible from where she was standing.

"Gather both Chöji and Shikamaru and tell them about the change of plans."

She wasn't able to hide her displeasure this time at being deprived of another one of her decisions. Not talking to her teammates, particularly Shikamaru, was the only option she was left with to show her contempt after her outburst. She had never seen Inoichi so mad at her to the point of a threat of physical punishment, but her father replaced what would have been her face with the desk in his office. Shikamaru became more an enemy than a comrade under her infuriated gaze. What a stupid boy he was for not seeing the emptiness in her words. Such a stupid boy from such a smart clan.

"Chöji!" She screamed, walking towards the boy she less resented, "team meeting! Asuma's orders!" She purposefully ignored the Nara's existence, she knew he wouldn't be as idiotic as to ignore her statement after making clear he had no choice in the matter. He will go to her encounter despite his pride. It was a lucky thing that her voice reached that far, it prevented her to have to repeat herself.

Chöji stopped his motions and glanced at her, his figure seemed to pause. The more she walked the more clear she saw his confused expression, his head turning in between her and his best friend, who approached him as well at a slower pace. Chöji glanced at her, pursed his lips, and walked towards Shikamaru, forcing her to change directions and walk to both of them instead of him alone. It was a statement of his loyalty. Her brows furrowed and her mouth sealed in a dangerously thin line.

Exhausted was the right way to describe her current mood but she was all harsh reactions and even harsher edges, each step making her legs tremble with anger and the thought of loneliness, she was suddenly resolute at the prospect of leaving this team for good. She wanted to let herself fall on the dirt and give in to her fury. Disappear to spare herself the humiliation of being beaten at the game she started. She has been shamed.

_The sound of the shovel against the dirt_. It was sad to the point she wanted to laugh at herself because somehow she hasn't laughed in days, weeks, the last time being when she saw Sakura tripping during their graduation a couple of weeks ago. She had laughed because she wanted Sakura to feel as humiliated as she made her feel all those years ago when she dropped her like a toy, but Sakura looked at her in a way that reminded Ino that she was the one who was at the bottom of the pit.

_(Next, Team 7. Haruno Sakura - Uzumaki Naruto - Uchiha Sasuke)_

Now Sakura was finally where she wanted to be and Ino was the one who was being swallowed by her frustrations. How dare she to start a rivalry and then left her collecting failures? Has Ino become such a pitiful person over the course of a few days? "We have to fill the holes." The command came naturally to her lips and filled her with the conviction that ruling was her nature. She glanced around the field with disgust. She had buried her pride at the bottom of one of the cracks.

"What?" Shikamaru's surprise overcame his distaste for her, Ino mused, the victory of Chöji having his back when Ino tried to dismiss him sweet on his lips, his mouth opened to speak to her despite their silent agreement of ignore each other.

"It's the client wish to fill the holes we just made." She didn't conceal her displeasure and she looked at a point in the distance to ignore Shikamaru's gaze, he rolled his eyes, she could tell without looking, he always considered her childish, now she was actually giving him a reason for it.

"You've got to be kidding me," his shoulders slumped forward, his palms pressed against his eyes. "What a fucking drag."

"Who is this client?" Chöji's stance was of exhaustion, dirt covered the corner of his mouth, "why is he toying with us?"

"Either Asuma-sensei or our families to teach us a lesson," Shikamaru twisted his mouth and pointedly looked at her, it was his wish to let her know he blamed her. He had made her the pariah before their enrolment in the Academy and just confirmed her position after their graduation. She did give him a ghost of a reason to be right. He purposefully exaggerated it.

She blinked, barely giving him the attention he desired, validating the point that stated she wanted nothing to do with him. She turned and walked back to her previous position, imagining Shikamaru's narrowed eyes at her rudeness and lack of response. He deserved her resentment.

"O...kay then." The breeze carried Chöji's voice, Ino regarded his confusion as a victory.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no proof in canon that the Ino-Shika-Chö relationship previous to the chünin exams was this difficult but there's an air to their interactions that portrayed it as at least conflictive. There's to believe that the three of them interacted even before their gënin days, but Ino is shown to have a circle of friends that did not involve Shikamaru or Chöji. Furthermore, Shikamaru picked Chöji and didn't even think of Ino during the Sasuke retrieval arc, even going as far as saying that he was the person that was easiest for him to work with, so -despite sparks of support between them during the exams- I don't believe they had a friendship, not until Shippuden. My portray of their relationship is constructed on seemingly canon material, but their distaste for one another is purposefully exaggerated.


	5. At deer's pace

**At deer's pace**

* * *

_Itachi was going to kill Kisame._ From the back of his mind to the very front he was considering it, every part of his brain yearned for this rebellion, quick in thinking of ways to dispose of his body and excuses to give Pein. He could say that the fish-man fought the wrong samurai or that his village finally caught him, even that he killed him by accident; Itachi was seriously considering his options. "Let's just report to Pein," he said, trying for once to stop his partner chuckle.

"Why can't you just take a joke for what it is?" The man clicked his tongue, it looked green against the grayness of his skin. "We're leaving this dead place, finally! We should celebrate!"

"We don't know that." Itachi deadpanned and forced himself to be reminiscent of the specifications laid on ink inside the scroll he read as a kid with his Sharingan. Kisame was at the peak of his stupidity. _TOP . SECRET - NOT . TO . BE . REVEALED - ARCHIVED - THE . DISCLOSURE . OF . THIS . SCROLL . TO . ANY . OUTSIDER . OF . THE . UCHIHA . CLAN . WILL . BE . JUDGED . AS . TREASON . AND . PUNISHED . WITH . EXILE -_ DO . NOT . COPY - _Gōkakyū no Jutsu - The performer has to control their chakra almost at perfection to be able to gather as much of it as possible on the user's mouth and draw it to their chest and expulse it through exhalation. SEALS -_ "Pein will say if we leave or not. Until then, you shouldn't speculate."

Kisame replied by cocking his head to the side and cracking his neck. The man sighed, licked his lips, and looked at the sky. It was at no vail that he tried to establish a conversation, Itachi didn't phantom to succumb to his desires of pretense camaraderie, "aren't you tired of being a mood killer?"

Itachi raised an eyebrow at his accusation, "I'm not a mood killer."

Kisame laughed. "Yeah right, and I'm as pretty as Cinderella."

He looked at him up and down and dropped the subject, the joke lost in the air between them. Itachi closed his eyes and performed the movements that would help him to communicate with the rest of the members of the group. He raised his middle and index finger and gently pressed them into the tip of his nose, conjuring a thought and transforming it onto chakra. Pein, thanks to his Rinnegan, picked up those chakra threads conducting his thoughts and was the responsible one to serve as a Tower to connect each of them for communication purposes.

"You're late." The voice of Pein rumbled in his brain.

"We weren't able to find a safe spot until now," Itachi responded.

"No excuses." Pein's voice was deep, cutting short Itachi's idea of justification. Sometimes the older Uchiha forgot who he was talking to, Pein was no kind man and had no patience for their insubordination. "Focus." Was the sole command he gave to the other members that started raising their voices -thoughts- to complain about Kisame and Itachi's tardiness. As if they had something better to do. "Reports."

"There hasn't been any significant change with the Ichibi," Sasori, next to Deidara -whose wave of thoughts always seem to reach its maximum shriek whenever Itachi's presence was around, physically or mentally- answered first, "its jinchüriki, a boy, continues to be established in Sunagakure no Sato, heavily guarded and watched. The kid appears to be mentally unstable." There was something in Sasori's voice that reflected disgust at his village. Perhaps Itachi imagined it.

"The Nibi appears to be sealed inside one of the shinobi from the Kumo lines," Kakuzu provided their leader with the information gathered, his wording purposefully precise as not to waste. "We have not yet been able to discover inside who."

There was a silence at Pein's end long enough for Itachi to believe the connection had faltered, he opened his mouth to offer their discoveries, but something around or inside the threads of Pein's thoughts seemed to stretch dangerously, speaking now looked as the worst course of action. "And why is that?" Came, finally, the answer. There was a threat in his tone.

"Hidan isn't able to control himself," Kakuzu's answer came fast as if anticipating the question -the response planned in advance.

"Hey! It's not my fault! Maybe if you actually did something, instead of just stand there and give orders like the stupid asshole you are, we would have something worthy to say!"

"I'm not the one who kills the people we capture for religious purposes."

"You-"

Pein raised a hand to silence them and the waves of their thoughts halted, Hidan was allowed only a grunt to show his displeasure, "Kakuzu, we paired you up with him for this reason." The leader spoke, "I hope new information is gathered in the course of the time until our next meeting." It was dangerous to piss off two persons who were immortal and had enough power to leave the organization with a blast, but Itachi knew that none of them were stupid enough to push their luck with the Rinnegan user. "Zetsu," he called.

Itachi recoiled the slightest bit from what was about to come, Zetsu's entities were hard for them to communicate with, its thoughts were sparsed around the air and, while Pein did a good job at smashing them together into the same rendezvous point, their thoughts clashed against various walls on his mind.

 _"We were able to find the Nanabi_ – _**We were able to find her**_ \- _is inside a woman from Takigakure -_ _ **she's strong -**_ _and she keeps moving from a place to another –_ _ **Fü is her name -**_ _Fü is the one."_

"Keep an eye on her from a safe distance; don't engage any form of contact. We need to stay hidden for a little longer." Pein told them, "anything else?"

 _"Yes_ , w _e found the Yonbi's jinchüriki_ – **i** _ **s in Iwagakure**_ – _Hardly guarded -_ _ **Very well trained -**_ _Very well indeed_ – **W** _ **e recommend using Kisame to capture it.**_ "

"Me?" Kisame asked, "isn't Deidara from Iwa? Use him!"

Pein flicked his wrist and Zetsu stopped, "when the time comes, Kisame will be the one who captures the Yonbi. Until then, each of you will be investigating other bijü and their jinchürikis, we need to gather as much information as we can in order to capture them without much of a problem and -ultimately, achieve our goal."

Not Itachi or Kisame replied to Pein's statement and future order, another rock to be carried on their back. There was a sudden need on his chest to peek at Kisame's expression, but Pein created figures of their bodies that were faceless and little did to recreate one's looks -there was no necessity for such trivialities. Back in the reality he stiffened his back but contained the curiosity, it will do no good to open his eyes and risk the loss of concentration. Abandoning the meeting for selfish reasons that were unimportant even by his standards was too much of a trouble. How childish of him to even entertain that thought.

"Itachi," his name was carried with the unequivocal tenor of repellency that Pein attached to him, his eyes narrowed by the always present prospect of betrayal. It did no good to Itachi to obsess over Pein's distrust, the man surrounded himself with shinobi offering themselves to the highest bidder.

"No bijüs in Tetsu no Kuni. We searched for signs that they were learning sealing techniques since perhaps some survivors of the Uzumaki clan might have found refuge within their borders, but all of our inquires came off negative."

Their leader seemed satisfied with that answer and nodded once. "We still need to do intelligence research in Konoha to get more information about the Kyübi's jinchüriki, I presume Itachi will be of value for the task. Regardless, there's more to be found about the remaining bijüs and their vessels. So keep an eye out for any rumor that might be of use. I'll be communicating with you for upcoming missions-" He paused, not ending the gathering yet as if lost in a thought. For a moment, there was nothing, in the other, Pein regained his wits, "encounters with any civilian or shinobi must be avoided at all cost. If confrontations are inescapable, then the usual rule applies, _no survivor_ s. Understood? Then, that will be all."

Without waiting for a reply, he formed a seal with his right hand that dispelled the technique that allowed them to communicate. Itachi regained his privacy with a sudden movement. He swallowed and opened his eyes slowly before standing. His tunic wet by the snow he was forced to sit on. He clicked his tongue with displeasure at the cold and dampness and passed a hand through his head to get rid of the snowflakes that fell upon him.

"Nice," Kisame said. "That must feel awesome."

"Shut up."

Kisame stretched his back, Samehada making a clicking sound with its buckle, "finally, we're leaving this dead place."

"Stop saying it's dead." Itachi adjusted his tunic, "and Pein didn't say we could leave."

"He didn't say we should stay either." Kisame retorted, "come on, Itachi, let's get out of here."

Itachi looked at his partner sideways and breathed. "He didn't tell us where to go next, I believe it will be of help to return to our hideout, we need the rest and I'll seek for a doctor."

"That sounds like a plan, there's no fun in carrying a disease-laden body."

Itachi again wondered how good would it feel to pierce through Kisame's scaled skin to rip his rib cage off, but he had learned to control himself from years of experience. Luckily for him, the cold weather and the frozen sensation of his fingers provided him an excuse to avoid looking at him, gazing at his hands instead. "The things I ignore in your favor. Sometimes it amazes me." He exhaled through his mouth. "We're leaving." Itachi finally told him, rubbing his hands under his coat.

"That's what I wanted to hear!" Kisame smirked, his lips dry and cracked.

During their return, Itachi allowed a glance around the flora of the Samurais' country that did not carry that much of scrutiny. His eyes were always in the search of a threat, bouncing from a corner of his vision to the other with enviable speed, it made him overlook nature's beauty but focus on its menace -humans were another part of its essence. His eyes roamed the road -barely visible by the blanket of snow, his feet were cautious to step on a slippery rock. There was barely any tree and the few that interrupted the whiteness had their branches naked off its leaves, few crystals in the shape of a drop hang out on them as a mere decoration, existent only at the mercy of the weather.

There was a small river that remained unfrozen, as wide as his stretched arm and with a soft current that they followed. The sound of the water was not a good thing to have as a distraction but they were in such a wide and open space that few things could surprise them. The noise of the water was low enough not to be disturbing and it seemed to distract Kisame from his talking needs, so Itachi allowed themselves to be cocky. He couldn't force himself to believe the Samurais to be strong enough to defeat them.

The reflection of the sun on the snow made it whiter, forcing him to squint his eyes at the strong light. Kisame did not speak again.

* * *

It was the first time Shikamaru was filthy enough to feel his skin itching. He had never been diligent with his mother to cut his nails when they were long enough to hurt him, but now the image of dirt under them made him swallow in something dangerously close to disgust. A voice ridiculously similar to Ino's emitting a displeased sound in his head.

Asuma has not been kind enough to cut them some slack, making them fight him on a daily basis for team-training purposes, often making them eat dirt with a powerful kick. His fists, he often said, were reserved for more worthy opponents, and they weren't there just yet. Shikamaru wasn't sure he ever wanted to be worthy.

"Again!" Asuma's words felt like a punishment on itself.

"Again?" Ino complained, standing from the floor, her knees creaking.

"Yes. But this time show some skills." Asuma replied, harshly. His pose was relaxed like he wasn't expecting her to be anywhere near his level.

And of course, she wasn't. With an exasperated scream, Ino ran towards Asuma with a kunai in her hand, throwing two shurikens as a distraction, forcing him to dodge, she jumped to the right to surprise him with a kick to his chin but Asuma moved slightly back and grabbed her foot. Shikamaru watched the two-seconds-fight with a frown. The noise of Ino being thrown and hitting her spine with a trunk made him tremble. Asuma scowled.

"If you don't have enough skills to fight against your opponent, rely on your team." Ino gritted her teeth and bit her lip, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. Asuma deepened his scowl. "Rely. On. Your. Team." She still didn't respond and he left out an exasperated sigh. "And you two…" He looked at his direction even if his speech enveloped them both, "what on earth are you doing not helping your teammate when she needs you?"

"But… I thought-" he started.

"You think too much." Asuma surprisingly said, walking towards them, "when a teammate is in danger, you help them. That's the only thing you should think about." Shikamaru kept silent, nothing he could say to justify himself would ever be good enough to make that statement any less true.

Ino joined the group while Asuma scolded them, grabbing her lower back and biting her lip, a moan of pain passing through her lips. Asuma, despite the fact that he had just thrown her across the training ground, patted her head in such a parental way that Shikamaru couldn't help but to feel embarrassed on his behalf. "Good try." He said to her and she scoffed. "I think this is all for today folks, meet me tomorrow at eight in the morning. We have more D-ranks to do!"

"But you don't do them." Chöji shrugged, and how was he comfortable enough with their teacher to say that to him after the admonish they had just received?

"Don't question my orders Chöji," Asuma smiled despite the ultimate of his statement, his tone gentle. "And even so, I'm there with you am I not?"

Chöji just twisted his mouth in response with a shrug of his shoulders. Asuma's presence was little comfort during their tasks and often the only thing that prevented them from taking a well-deserved pause or a little sip of water from their canteen. Their Jönin instructor had yet to show much kindness or a looser grip as Iruka-sensei had, Shikamaru shivered at the knowledge that such behaviors from superiors were well in his past.

In all fairness, Asuma did reassure their self-esteem, often complementing their efforts but not yet their skills, "so... unless you want another round of traini-"

"No thanks!" Ino interrupted the Jönin. "No. We don't. We definitely don't."

"Eh… fine then," he shrugged, a small smile on his lips, "then I'll see you tomorrow." He saluted them with a simple wave of his hand and walked away, the three of them watched him go in silence, his figure disappearing behind a tree.

"He's torturing me," Ino complained, still grabbing her sore back.

"He's torturing us. What was that?" Chöji cleaned his forehead with a towel. They were yet to come to terms with the arrangement and Shikamaru still hadn't decided whether he liked their sensei or not. The man often tossed them around like empty bags -they weighted nothing on his hands (such a child's weight he had!) and pulped them far beyond the ground. Shikamaru knew he had no skills for combat and, until now, he had never been ashamed for his lack in that department. Asuma Sarutobi destroyed every ounce of whatever self-worth he had and merely tried to rebuild it with a compliment for his efforts. His brain was of no use if he couldn't survive a simple encounter, it was a harsh truth. It was also humiliating.

"Still…" Ino mumbled, looking at the tree Asuma disappeared behind of, "I should have enough skills to at least be somewhat decent in a fight."

Shikamaru couldn't help his mouth from quirking upwards, because what a stupid thing to believe. Was Ino self-centered enough that she couldn't phantom the idea of being so behind a jönin skills? It seemed so, and that didn't surprise Shikamaru in the slightest. What a troublesome girl to be sharing a team. "What?" He spoke despite better judgment. Ino glanced his way, he raised an eyebrow.

"What? It's true." She replied. Looking, to Shikamaru's utterly horror and surprise, sad. Her mouth twisted downwards, her eyelids down, she glanced at her sandals, ashamed. He couldn't believe his eyes, it had to be a trick of some sort, maybe manipulation on her part, Ino Yamanaka was not known for admitting weakness. Not even to herself.

She seemed surprised to find herself being this weak, Shikamaru fought every part of his sharp tongue that wanted to chuckle and welcome her to the club. There was no point in dwell on a broken mirror, whatever image she thought was her reflection had already been shattered to pieces. He could not help her. More importantly, he will not. "He's a jönin." Was the only thing he thought worthy to say as a consolation, if it could be believed as such.

"So?" She raised an eyebrow at him, like his statement was a detail not worthy of acknowledging on her struggle. She had a thick skull.

"So… he's better than us by, like, a lot?" Chöji looked at her perplexed.

"Ugh, I know he's better than us." She said, adjusting her ponytail and really, how was it possible for her to look so put together after being thrown against a tree, he felt self-conscious of his appearance for a split second. "But… I should… I..."

Her stamer reminded him of the Hyüga girl in his class. Shikamaru never paid so much attention to the rest of the group but that girl made him feel uncomfortable. She didn't speak much, a thing that Shikamaru was grateful for, but she lacked capability in every other aspect of social interactions or shinobi artistry. He did not understand her involvement in a space she clearly didn't belong to. Maybe it was being forced upon her but, honestly, little did he care. This life was forced on everybody else.

Ino went red. "I should… be more difficult to beat than… than you two, I mean-"

"Oh-"

"-I mean! I was better than you in the Academy, I'm, I'm just…"

"No, no, I get it." Chöji sighed, his smile disappearing but his tone gentle.

"I'm sor- I don't know!" She complained, truthfully looking lost. She clearly had a softer spot for Chöji than she had for him, although Shikamaru didn't care much for her softness. Still, her words carried some truth -maybe all of it, but he was a proud man (he was still a boy despite his self-perception and there will be a time when he will despise the fact that he hadn't exploited the moments when few were his responsibilities). He refused to believe to be below her -he was not -he will never be -such a troublesome girl. "Kamisama," she said, palms pressed on her eyes to soothe.

It was an awkward moment that Shikamaru refused to be part of for longer, they hadn't reached a point where they could shrug off a conversation and start another, pleasant, one. They haven't reached a point where Shikamaru wanted to lift her spirits. Chöji glanced at him and he rolled his eyes, but Chöji's response was to furrow his eyebrows. He looked disappointed. "It's fine Ino, you'll beat Asuma in no time, I'm sure." He said to her, curse his benevolent nature.

Ino detached her face from her palm and bit her upper lip, Chöji's words seemed to have awoken her from her self-pity slumber and she straightened her back, her hands cleansing the dust from her chest. "Thank you, Chöji." She blushed and refused to make a spectacle of herself for them to judge. Her eyes met his for a moment, brows furrowed, analyzing whether if his respect for her was pushed further down or had remained unaltered. It was a pointless concern, she was already at the very bottom.

There wasn't much for them to say to each other so Ino walked away with a simple nod as a salute.

"Shikamaru…" Chöji whispered his name and his face crumbled, Ino was nowhere to be seen and they were the only ones left. Shikamaru missed spending time with his best friend without the weight of a third person, he missed not being a gënin.

"Is there something wrong, Chöji?" He asked, watching his friend purse his lips.

"No, no... it's just... uhm..." Chöji glanced up at the top of the trees, and it wasn't until a few moments later that he chose to speak again, "is there something wrong in your house?"

Shikamaru was perplexed by the question, it ignited his curiosity and concern in a mere second, he took a step back unconsciously. Chöji looked worried. "What?"

"I'm sorry -it's not-" and Chöji had still to speak, still to explain -Shikamaru loved his friend, he loved him, but he wanted nothing more than to shake him out of this sudden shyness, he wished he had the willpower to slap the words out. "It's just-" and he halted his words again, stumbled.

"Chöji!" He could hold his breath no longer.

"Sorry!" Chöji blushed, his hand closed in fists. "It's just my dad! He's... he's weird, I don't know what is happening but -maybe your dad is the same? Or..."

Shikamaru closed his eyes and clenched his fists, but quickly tried to relax them. He sighed all his worries out and relaxed his forehead, massaging the skin with his fingers. "No that I'm aware of. Is there something wrong with Chöza?"

"Yeah..." Chöji whispered, glancing down as in shame -probably worry. "I don't know what because he doesn't tell me. He says is a clan matter but..." He paused and turned red again, his cheeks looked almost on fire today, "aren't I a part of the clan too?! Aren't I going to be our leader someday?!"

"I..." Shikamaru could do nothing for Chöji's anger, it was so uncommon for the boy to lost his temper for a real reason. When people called him fat and he answered with violence it was a childish response to combat the other's intention to lower him as a ninja. Chöza had the real power to push him down the rabbit hole and make him question his entire existence.

"I... I so want to show him my worth, Shikamaru..." he said, almost pleading. "No... I... I want to be worthy."

Shikamaru didn't know what to say.

* * *

When Shikamaru returned home, he was received by the uncommon salute of silence.

The main hall and living-room were subjected to darkness and not even his usual announcement of arrival received a response. He shrugged the first sparkle of concern that tickled his spine because, even if his mother didn't go out that often, it wasn't as if she never left the house to see some relatives or friends. There was no note to warn them about her departure, but that would probably mean that she was about to come back soon, nothing more.

The orange light of the candle on his father's office was noticeable from the crack of the door and there were shadows moving from one side to the other of the room. He knocked, deciding to warn his father about his presence, and when Shikaku opened the door with his eyebrows furrowed and his forehead wrinkled, Shikamaru regretted his action. His father relaxed his features just a little bit, but it was clear by his sharp eyes that he was still wary.

Shikamaru started to worry because that wasn't like his father at all.

"I'm home." Was the first thing he said, even if he wanted to ask if something –no, _what_ was wrong. But that would be an even more stupid question, not only his father would never give him the sort of answer he will be looking for, but he will definitely not tell him in a space where both of them could be potentially heard.

"I noticed it," was the answer, but the tone on Shikaku's voice was completely calm. "Your mother will be back in a couple of hours, why won't you go take a nap until dinner?"

It was a dismissal and Shikamaru knew it. He gave him a look, the Nara look, that was meant to imply that Shikamaru knew that something was going on, but Shikaku just shrugged his worry, patting his head like when he was a kid. He opened his mouth to voice his question, but his father quickly smiled and closed the door of his office.

Shikamaru went to his room, but he didn't sleep at all.


	6. Crescendo

** Crescendo **

* * *

When she finally swallowed the lump and felt the acid of her vomit burn her throat she decided to look at the elephant in the room. A scroll of almost white paper and red envelope was neatly arranged in the desk in front of her, golden-like letters shining at the top of the Konoha seal. It wasn't the first time she had seen this type of scroll before, having a whole clan conformed of ninjas and a father in charge of distributing the missions. Still, this was the first one who had made her nervous because it was entirely for her.

"Asuma send it this morning." Her father spoke calmly before caressing the soft envelope with the tip of his fingers, looking at the manuscript like it was a bomb to defuse.

Ino nodded, not sure how to behave, he was her father but also her leader and this felt much more formal than a simple conversation. "I… thought… you choose who…" she felt suddenly shy, Inoichi Yamanaka was not _dad_ , Inoichi Yamanaka was the clan head, and even if she had his DNA running through her veins, she was still a mere subject until it was her turn to rule. If they ever gave her that opportunity.

(But truthfully, which child will ever feel the ruler of their own parent?)

Inoichi Yamanaka was a leader that spoke clear and with few sentences, he never yelled or insulted, he never lost his temper. His tone of voice was deeper than most of the clan heads and his body language was almost non-existent. He was stiffer. Sharper. "I choose what? Ino." It was like an interrogation.

_(Always speak with confidence in your voice)._

She swallowed. "I thought you were the one who chose the proper missions for clan members… sir."

Inoichi didn't smile or moved, Ino wished he did. "I never choose the missions." He said, "the Hokage does. I choose the members of the clan that I consider fit for them if they ask for an information-gathering specialist."

Ino waited a couple of seconds to see if he was going to continue, not wanting to interrupt. "So I'm… fit… for this." She swallowed, "aren't I?"

"You're a gënin under the tutelage of a Jönin. I have no saying in the missions of Yamanaka members under Chünin ranks." He sounded almost upset. Ino breathed at that.

"Oh…"

"Still, if Asuma chose this particular mission for you and your team, then you must be fit for it. The three of you."

"Oh…"

Inoichi's sharp eyes burned her. "Oh? Just oh. That's everything you're going to say?"

"No, no, no…. I mean…" She swallowed, "I- I'm not sure what to say… sir."

For a moment Inoichi relaxed his features, pushing the scroll towards her, the paper made a scraping sound against the wood of the desk. "You say, _thank you, Sir_ , you take the scroll, you bow and leave."

"R-right." She grabbed the scroll. "Thank you, Sir." Bowing, she tried to pick at her father's expression but his face was impassive. She left as instructed and walked towards her room. She was halfway on the stairs when the sound of his voice made her stop.

"Ino," the sound didn't seem hostile but she still turned hesitantly, hoping that her dad had left the other man inside his office. "You're going to be fine."

Ino took a deep breath that filled her lungs in a way she didn't know she needed, the nervousness previously built dissipating as quickly as a whistle. His dad was at the bottom of the stairs, not going up but looking straight at her as if he was physically touching her reassuringly. Still, the distance between them felt wrong, they never were distant before, and Ino realized almost at that moment that the more she grew the more they will drift apart because that's nature. And Ino, who loved nature, suddenly hated it.

"I don't like my team." The words felt like knives cutting her tongue and were received as such, Inoichi's face writhing in a way that will haunt her dreams for years to come.

He visibly swallowed, taking a step closer to the stairs, the movement did feel hostile and Ino's back hit the wall. "You don't have the privilege of doing that." It was the short sentence and the look of disgust on his face that told her that the clan's head was back, her dad buried deep in the farthest part of himself as to not intervene in the lecture.

"I know." Her dad had told her to speak confidently, and Ino was nothing but a quick learner. "But if I don't like them…" she didn't finish the sentence, the weight of the meaning hanging darkly above both their shoulders.

"You can't trust them," Inochi mumbled, saying the words that Ino had refused to admit at loud.

Ino sighed, "I can't. I'm trying but-"

"But what? What exactly are you trying?" He wasn't particularly yelling but his eyes were completely open, his jaw set like he was ready to bark, he looked like a man facing not his daughter but his enemy and Ino almost cries his heart out.

"I'm trying t-to fit… I can't. They're not-"

"They're not _what_ , Ino?" Inoichi's lips twisted. "Competent? Strong enough?"

"Ye-yes, no, no I mean…"

"Then what?" He took a step closer, slowly.

"I don't… I just…"

"You don't _what_? You just _what_?"

_Stop, stop, stop._

"They're not what?" He insisted. "They're not Sakura? They're not Sasuke?" He spat their names out like they were venom, like both of them had personally offended him.

"Stop!" She begged, "please dad!"

Inoichi's entire expression changed in a split second, he went from looking mad, ready to go full clan head with her to look like a kicked puppy, his jaw relaxing to the point where his mouth hung open. He took two steps back, returning to the bottom of the stairs but not leaving. "I…" she tried to speak, but she couldn't find her voice. So she closed her mouth and swallowed, her dad didn't move, didn't speak. He was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, still looking at her. "I'm sorry." She blurted out, but she wasn't sure she was the one to blame.

There was a pause that extended too much for her tastes.

Inoichi swallowed and, somehow, he looked ready to cry. "You should be." He whispered. "You're gonna kill my daughter."

He walked to his office again and she watched him go, the action was simple and yet it hurt so much.

"Dad…" she whispered, but Inoichi was too deep in his sorrow to hear her.

* * *

The mission seemed easy enough, at least on paper. After all, it wasn't as if she hasn't heard about C-ranks going terribly, terribly wrong to the point where one or more members of the team hadn't returned home, jönin teachers looking worn out with the grief and the task of having to talk to broken parents. The sun was high enough for her to squint her eyes shut from time to time, tapping her right foot on the floor almost rhythmically, she wanted to be mad at their tardiness but in all honesty is her who's purposefully early, trying to put as much distance to her home as she could.

This was not the way she had pictured her first C-rank mission starting, but in all honesty, nothing of what she had imagined had come to fruition lately, so this setback didn't come as a complete surprise. Still, her relationship with her father was anywhere near she had envisioned it to be at this point in her life, and something in her gut told her that her life was being destroyed at her own volition.

_(She thinks she might write a letter to her dad while on the mission, she thinks she has to because it's easier to think clearly when you're scribbling words with ink and paper, vague ideas and sentiments have a way to stick into your brain more purposefully when they become real in a scroll, but then she realizes she doesn't have nor ink or paper, and feels the shred of her relationship with Inoichi tighten threateningly)._

"Early?"

"Yeah."

She should be surprised at his infinite capacity of jumping out of nowhere, she knew Asuma was expecting her to be, but Ino's getting accustomed to his antics and really, Asuma only has himself to blame for her not reacting in the same way she used to.

"That's the spirit." If he was disappointed at her lack of outburst, he didn't show it, lighting a cigarette instead. She kind of likes him more for that.

At some point she saw two dark figures walking slowly towards them, the hair of Shikamaru distinguishable even from a long distance, she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at them without thinking. Them. Always. Them. They were already a team, the whole purpose of the training was to fit _her_ in. They didn't need to train together because they were already a unit.

_And who's fault was that?_

She refused to believe it was her doing.

"And here I thought you were going to be late," Asuma's words were accompanied by smoke and the smell of nicotine. Shikamaru seemed unfazed, and Chöji elbowed him in the ribs.

"I wouldn't have let him." Chöji's smile was sincere and it made her shiver. "Hi, Ino."

"Yeah…" She whispered, blushing. "I mean hi." The three men of the team stared at her, but she purposefully looked at her sandals as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

"So…" Asuma continued, "are you ready for today?"

"Well, we can't exactly reject the mission, can we?" Shikamaru shrugged.

"Oh, you can… but then, you know, consequences."

"Ah, yes, those, how could I ever forget those?"

"You should never forget them, son…" Asuma scratched his beard, "nope, no, too weird, not ready to call anyone like that. Definitely not ready."

"Uhm… should we, you know, check that we packed what is necessary?" She said, hands on her hips.

"Yeah, no, I don't think so, you should know that by now. Kindergarten camps, children…"

"B- but that was totally different!"

"We are a shinobi village Ino, what we teach has no other purpose than keeping you alive when you go out on a mission." He smiled like he wasn't sealing her future.

"Already?" Chöji's eyes opened widely.

"Yeah, why? You expected something else?"

"I don't know… a speech, maybe?"

The capacity of Asuma's lungs always surprised her, one would think that with all the cigarettes he consumed his lungs would be pretty much covered in ashes at this point, but here he was, laughing at loud like he never went aphonic a single day in his life. "Oh, Chöji you're definitely my favorite." He said, turned around, and started walking out of the village.

And thus, their first C-rank mission started.

_Yay_. She thought sarcastically.

* * *

Ino wasn't talking much for which Shikamaru was thankful but it also bothered him because, god he _hated_ that he knew her that much, that meant something was going on. He didn't know what it was and he wasn't sure he wanted to know the reason, but it had to be important if resulted in making Ino Yamanaka quiet. The route to Yugakure no Sato wasn't particularly difficult but it was smelly, which was a weird thing to say as a description, but it was accurate. The humidity didn't surprise him considering the name of the village but the smell of slightly putrid wood did.

"It only gets worse," Asuma said with a shrug at Ino's infinite disgusted expression, "there're worst things to smell, believe me."

She didn't argue the statement.

"Why didn't the Hokage brief us about the mission? I thought it was a costume in Konoha when it came to the first C-rank." He asked.

Surprisingly, the question seemed to bother Asuma if his pursed lips were any indication. "The Hokage was currently _busy_." He replied, the last word almost spatted out of his mouth, Shikamaru understood that probably wasn't the question what actually bothered his teacher but the answer and made a note not to bring up the Hokage (a.k.a Asuma's dad) in a conversation again. Family, after all, was a sensitive topic.

So, escort the daughter of a family from Yugakure back to Konoha, no enemies known, no money or jewelry involved, just a groom from Konoha who wanted to look fancy and play the gentleman role by hiring some shinobi to escort his bride to be. Easy and tedious.

"This is the fifth time you sigh, Shikamaru," Asuma said, glancing at him from the corner of his eyes.

"Well, it's not as if I can contradict you on that."

"I wasn't expecting you to, I was trying to give you an opening to tell me the reason."

"You know the reason."

"Fine, I'm trying to make you talk to teach you a proper lesson. Humor me."

Shikamaru sighed again. "Why bothering hiring ninjas to escort a woman back to Konoha? It doesn't make sense."

"For the groom it does." Their teacher replied.

"It's troublesome."

"It's love." And suddenly there she was, Ino Yamanaka, speaking for the first time in probably hours; _love_ , of course, girls would have their say in this particular topic, even twelve years old like Ino who didn't understand a single thing about it.

He tsiked, "it feels like a show to me."

"Well," Ino didn't glance at him, "of course you wouldn't understand."

"What does that mean?" He asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

"You perfectly know what it means." She looked at him for a brief second, like he wasn't worth the explanation.

"You don't know what it means either if you think that thing you have for Sasuke is love-"

"First of all, don't. you. dare." She stopped walking and pointed a finger at him. "I'm in love, I don't have to be a genius to know that."

Shikamaru swallowed a laugh in favor of replying to her. "Please, if anything, you are just infatuated."

"You're just saying that because anyone is in love with you." She tried to insult.

"Well, of course not, we're twelve-year-olds, none of us is really in love or even able to _be_ in love."

Ino threw her hands in the air, "for your information, Asuma-sensei meet Kurenai when they were our age and now th-"

"What?!" Asuma almost chokes on his saliva. "No, no, no. Kurenai and I- we are not dating."

Shikamaru shrugged, "and even if they were-"

"-we're not."

"-they fell in love when they were older, not _twelve_."

"But we're not dating."

Ino pursed her lips and looked at him with anger at being questioned -moreover because it was her love for Sasuke that was being questioned-, but then she blinked and her expression changed completely, her shoulders relaxed and she parted her lips. "Oh," she said.

"Oh?" He asked.

"It's nothing," she shrugged and started to walk.

"What do you mean is nothing?" He questioned, watching her walk.

She didn't look at him when she replied, "it's real Shikamaru, you're just too stiff to let it flow."

_(It will take him his entire life and love in different ways to understand what she meant. Love is incredibly malleable, you see)._

"Anyway…" Chöji spoke. "If it's just to escort a bride to be, why is it a C-rank? Shouldn't it be a D-rank?"

"It's outside Konoha," Asuma replied, "pretty much every single mission that happens outside Konoha's doors are considered C-ranks."

"In order to squeeze all the money they can, isn't it?" Shikamaru said.

Asuma narrowed his eyes, "you shouldn't say that out loud. But, yes, yes it is."

"What? Why?" Chöji asked them.

"Well, I don't know if I'm correct, but almost every single person that needs something from outside the village are either from _Hi no Kuni_ or foreigners, D-ranks are mostly inside the village and is pretty much reserved for the citizens of Konoha; you know, merchants, farmers, and _yada yada_. They are a way to tell them 'ey, you have a discount for living in a ninja village, don't go away, we need someone to harvest our food'." Shikamaru replied, Asuma rolled his eyes.

"Yeah but, isn't the hospital full of ninja doctors? Isn't that, like, payment enough?"

"It's not free to go to the hospital if you are not a ninja, and even then, you always have a discount in your paycheck regarding health insurance."

"D-ranks are really expensive tho…"

"Well, we are professionals so…"

"So C-ranks are designed to be requested by foreigners and sometimes grooms who want to impress their bride," Asuma added, "and now shush, you're giving me a headache."

The smell was awful, and the more they walked the more he hated it, but oh lord the sun looked wonderful through the leaves. They stopped to set up a camp somewhat during the afternoon, they will have to share a tent, at least Ino, Chöji, and him -Asuma couldn't fit inside even if he wanted to, but Shikamaru doubted he would want to sleep around a bunch of twelve-year-olds. So he laid down in the dirt and blinked. He was the first one in watch, well, him and Asuma, who was suspiciously absent, probably in one of the trees ready to be their backup during the whole night.

Teaching, what a pain in the ass really.

"Shikamaru…" Ino was whispering. He could barely see her figure.

"What?" He whispered back.

There was a pause… "do you have a pen?"

"A pen?" He asked incredulously. "Why would you want a pen?"

"It's just… do you have or not?"

It was his turn to pause. "No."

"Oh… it's fine. I mean, I don't have paper anyway…" he watched her figure starting to disappear in the background.

"Ino…" he couldn't control his voice.

"What?"

"Why would you want a pen?"

There was a pause again, "it's nothing. It's fine."

"Are you okay?" He blurted and stiffed at his own question, he wasn't concerned for Ino -why would he? They weren't friends, no, it wasn't concern, he told himself, but she was behaving so weird. He didn't like it. It was... uncomfortable.

"I… yes. Yes." She replied.

And then,

"Thank you." She said, and Shikamaru was too in awe to reply.

He returned to his original position and looked at the sky, there were stars everywhere and it was so dark that they seemed to be floating in ink, maybe they were, maybe Kamisama existed and he was looking at the inkwell, maybe if he looked far enough, he would be able to see his future.

"You're welcome." He finally whispered, Asuma the only one who could hear him.


	7. Blue Kimono

** Blue kimono **

* * *

Sometimes, the few times all three of them let themselves be, they would all look at the mesmerizing image of their fathers together. They were young and impressionable, but no one would deny that even the mere figures of the Ino-Shika-Cho unit walking together in perfect sink was breathtakingly dangerous.

The sunshine in the background was just a plus.

As a child, she would sometimes go to bed thinking that someday she would be the one in that unit, admired by the kids around the village when the three of them simply walked. Ino-Shika-Cho. There was a reason why her family's name was the first one to be mentioned, her clan used to be much more powerful than now is, it used to be the leader she was sure. Now, everyone affirmed that the three of them were equal, but every clan liked to think of themselves as the most important one. She didn't mind that a lot, as long as those thoughts were kept private and more importantly, as long as there was no power imbalance in their relationship.

But then, Nara.

Yamanaka were observant, and she was a Yamanaka, so when she noticed the way the Hokage's hand lingered a few seconds more on Shikaku Nara's handshake than her father or Chöza, she knew. At some point, intelligence had reduced to plans and strategies, and not on information gathering. _There's no planning without knowledge_ , her father had said, but Shikaku was smart, he had "knowledge", and they would be a time when Konoha wouldn't need a mind reader anymore if they were ahead of everyone's plan thanks to the Nara clan.

But Inoichi brushed away her discomfort, she was young he had said, there was so much she couldn't see yet, he had reassured her, but Ino couldn't understand it. She didn't like Shikamaru that much, but to think that his clan would eat hers in just a few generations made her dislike him even more. With time, and the image of a perfect Sasuke Uchiha clouding her mind, she dropped the subject and almost forgot about it, but every time Shikamaru would look her way, something about that hopeless feel would resurface.

But then, their fathers would simply walk through the streets of her village, going away on a mission, their backs turned to them and the red spiral almost shining on their vests (her father in the middle, always in the middle, like he glued all three of them together) and she would just wish, hope, to be admired as she admired them.

The village would simply stop everything to see them walk.

* * *

With time, Ino had to make peace with the fact that she wouldn't stand in the middle like her father did. She wasn't the glue that kept together this group, moreover considering that she didn't want to be in it in the first place. She would never stood between Shikamaru and Chöji. There she was, standing in the sidelines, looking at how their friendship flourished at the faintest touch of the sun. She once thought to have something like that, something that she planted and nurtured with the delicacy and caress of a breeze, but as soon as one of the flowers opened just a little in response to that soft embrace, the roots that hold it steady burn themselves to the ground.

It might be a pitiful thing to look at both Chöji and Shikamaru and narrow her eyes in jealousy, for there was no one who wouldn't want to be enveloped in between her arms to be consoled, but she couldn't help not want to open up to anyone else, _she_ had taken advantage of her caring nature. Ino will not bend down for no one no more. It was safer as it was lonelier. How had her life being reduced to love and be broken or be whole and alone? Damn both Chöji and Shikamaru who pushed her even further away.

This place could have been, or was once upon a time, breathtakingly beautiful. Now, they built a really pretty place from the ashes of their -still too fresh, wounds from the war. They didn't like shinobi, that was for sure giving the stares some of them were sending their way, but they also relied on them in order to exist. After all, shinobi were also potential clients, well-paid ones and ready to spend a _lot_ (given they didn't think they'll have much more to live), and as a former hidden village-turned-into-a-resort, they needed every possible income.

Ino couldn't blame them, not many places liked shinobi very much. Not even their own villages. Still, it was a warm day, and the incense scent of the shops around the street blurred the constant musty stench they had felt along the way. Ino allowed herself to smile.

"We're supposed to meet our client at the gates in one hour," Asuma said.

"So… can we look around?" She asked, mapping in her head every shop she saw within two miles radius.

"No." Asuma lit a cigarette, "we're in the middle of a mission."

"But-"

"But you need to learn to put your priorities in order, Ino," Asuma said, surprisingly gentle.

"Ugh, fine," she whined. "I hate you." It was a soft whisper that carried no malice, Ino believed Asuma pretended not to hear it as to save her from the embarrassment of a scolding in unknown premises or maybe not. Perhaps she was giving him too much credit. She sat in the dirt road and put her hands on her cheeks.

"So," Asuma spoke, "information gathering team, what can you tell me about Yugakure?" He turned towards her, Shikamaru and Chöji stood a few feet away from her on the right.

"What?"

"You heard."

"I… well, from what we saw in school-"

"-school?" Asuma interrupted her. "You are the Capture and Information Gathering team, and you didn't think about learning as much as you can about a place you will go on a mission?"

Both Chöji and Ino swallowed.

"They used to be a Hidden village a couple of generations ago, but they decided they did not want to keep being one, probably because of the power imbalance and death ratio. As far as I know, they were pretty close to disappear anyway because of how fast their shinobi kept dying, considering they weren't that many to begin with." Shikamaru sighed at the end, like he was exhausted.

"In a shinobi village numbers don't particularly matter, one Uchiha Itachi whipped out an entire clan in one night," Asuma said taking a cigarette out of the box, grabbing the nicotine tube in between his long fingers. There was a silence that stretched between them and Ino felt her throat burn -an image of Sasuke-kun crying on the floor of an empty house that she has never been to came to Ino's mind with the power of electricity, making the hair of her arms stand, she almost drowns on the sadness. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, that's clearly a bad example..."

He backpedaled on his words as if telling them out loud could conjure the monster that disappear one night carrying the souls of those he swore to protect, Ino unconsciously looked around, a sudden chill ran through her spine. _Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Itachi -_ three times she called his name and he had yet to appear, perhaps the monster was sleeping. Perhaps she needed to stop pretending the monster wasn't as human as her.

_(Was this the moment she invoked him and allow him to shred her soul apart? She thought it to be a children's play)_

Asuma played with the cigar on his fingers, he rolled it from one side to the other, looking at it with an expression that resembled disgust. After a moment that seemed of consideration, he crushed it and threw the bits of tobacco in the dirt. "What else about Yugakure?" He asked, burying the tension.

"Well..." Shikamaru seemed eager to drop the subject as well, because he never was the first to reply, "they clearly became a resort. And I think they're doing pretty good." He shrugged, looking around at the town with mere contempt, as if the sole sight of it bored him to sleep.

Asuma pursed his lips and looked at the destroyed cigarette on the ground, he seemed regretful. "That's completely vague and raw information at its best." The scold came out softer than what he probably intended, still looking at the ground. "I'll go easy on you this time. Don't push this kindness."

"Yes sensei." They all said. What more could they do at this point? They came unprepared.

"We can't have this team to fail in the only thing it's supposed to do, I won't stand it."

"Yes sensei."

Ino scratched her nose and sighed, of all the things she had to do, that is, training with Asuma, her dad, and taking care of the flower shop, she also had to study every place they'll send them to; she supposed it could be worst; after all, Shikamaru was a stupid genius and Chöji was committed to the whole group, so they weren't the worst teammates to have in these circumstances. Even then, something about relying on Shikamaru to collect information with her didn't sit well.

From far away a figure appeared, it moved almost like she was tiptoeing her way towards them, her pale complexion contrasting with the blue of her kimono. Her chest was small and decorated with a necklace that seemed made of rope. She wasn't carrying any luggage, as if nothing tied her here anymore, as she didn't possess any belongings but the dress and the neckless -it reminded Ino of a gallow. She looked skinny and barely taller than Ino herself. Skinny. Fragile. Completely forgettable and not worthy of four ninja escorts from any man.

And then she smiled, a ghost of a smile that is -so shy in her presentation that you could easily ignore her, and a shadow with pink hair came running to the front of Ino's mind, a large forehead trying to being covered unsuccessfully by bangs too short. The girl bowed slightly and the kimono swayed with the wind, her hair in a perfect bun. She was, Ino decided, worthy of the world.

"Hello," the girl said sweetly, her voice so soft it could put you to sleep. "My name is Maicel, I believe you are here to escort me, yes?"

"Yes," Asuma replied, putting his hand in Ino's head to make her stand, Ino blinked out of her reverie and jumped up. The girl, Maicel, followed her movement with her brown eyes. "Are you ready to go… eh… Miss?" Asuma asked her, looking at her with something close to pity.

"Yes, I believe so." She smiled kindly. Her dark hair encompassing her face without disturbing. She wasn't particularly pretty, but she was breathtaking in a way Ino remembered seeing years ago from another little girl.

It wasn't fair to compare them both, but Maicel looked so small and unprotected. So young.

Maicel was easy to escort. She moved gracefully, her blue kimono barely touching the ground as it danced around her. The smell of the town didn't seem to upset her, although that might be her just being accustomed to it. She didn't seem to belong here, but she didn't seem to belong nowhere. To no one. She never stopped smiling, thing that unsettled Ino, and she didn't complain one bit. She was soft-spoken, as if she whispered every word in fear to scare the birds posed in the branches.

It was the first time the three of them were surprised enough not to look at each other, they didn't engage in any conversation as to pass time, Ino was scared to talk to Maicel and break at the weight of her innocence, she couldn't be more than twelve and she was to get married. The world was awful. She wanted to burn it to the ground. Shikamaru couldn't stop watching her and for that, well, Ino couldn't blame him.

When the night was upon them they stopped near a small lake close to the route they were using, the sound of the water on the shore was relaxing and Ino begged not to fall asleep when she had to be on watch. The moon was high above them and, even when the foliage allowed them to be covered from anyone who could be a potential threat (that if said person wasn't a ninja), it didn't stop the white light of the moon from creeping in. Ino sometimes got distracted by looking at it.

She was the last one to stand guard before the sun came out, so at least she would see the sunrise. It presented no consolation.

She heard a noise coming from the camp and jumped to her feet, a kunai in her hand. Still, Asuma (who was most definitely keeping watch of her) didn't move from his hiding place, so it either meant that it was an animal, a bug, a comrade, or someone who didn't mean an immediate danger.

"I hope I didn't startle you," the soft voice came from the bushes.

"Maicel?" She whispered just in the moment her figure emerged from the leaves. She was still pale and the blue kimono made her look like a spirit with her hair down from her perfect - _perfect_ , bun. The moonlight bathed her as if apologizing for her destiny. Ino knew she had no right to be mad on behalf of someone she knew just in name but she couldn't help to wish -to think that perhaps Maicel could-

"I'm sorry but, I can't sleep, mind if I join you?"

"Oh… I mean…"

"If I can't-"

"-no, no, it's fine. You can stay."

It was more than likely that Asuma was going to admonish her for letting Maicel stay out in the open with a ninja that could barely hold herself in a fight, but how could Ino deny her wish? The girl's voice trembled despite the softness, if she talked louder she might crack under the weight of her fears. Ino knew she couldn't -that she wasn't allowed -but pink hair and blue kimono, large forehead and rope neckless -how could she not?

Love and being broken.

Her heartbeat was so intense Ino could feel the blood rushing to her hears, she pursed her lips to try to hold her impulses down, but, "are you okay?" She asked.

"Oh, I'm fine," Maicel replied, "just a little bit nervous."

There was like time itself stop existing and threw her in a loop, Ino's mind was going back and forth on its thoughts and wishes. "Scared?"

"... yeah."

Ino pursed her lips and looked at Maicel. She wasn't crying, so she didn't allow herself to cry for her.

"You don't have to marry him if you don't want to…" she ventured, softly.

Maicel, surprisingly, didn't reply.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that…" Ino blushed, but it was true, Maicel didn't have to marry the guy, she wasn't compromising her mission by telling her that, after all, they were escorting her to the village, what happened after that was out of her reach.

"It's okay." Maicel whispered, and looked at the moon, "it's so pretty."

"Yeah," Ino replied, looking up.

"Shikamaru seems nice," Maicel suddenly said, and Ino almost chokes on her saliva.

"W-what?" Oh, she had such a bad taste, the poor girl "you like him?"

Maicel blushed, it was the most human thing she had see her do. "I don't know... I never got to choose anything." And looked at the sky again.

"Your fiance?" She asked, softly, lightly.

Maicel blinked, "I haven't met him yet."

Ino wished she could be surprised by that, but unfortunately what Maicel said wasn't that uncommon.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Mmhh, he did send me letters tho," she didn't smile, she looked almost sad, "I guess tomorrow will be the day I will finally meet him, uh?"

"I guess…" she swallowed and looked at Maicel still watching the moon. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"How old are you?" She asked finally, as sweetly as she could, she could practically hear Asuma sighing.

"Eleven." There was a heavy silence, Ino looked at the ground. She was feeling so much sorrow for this poor girl's heart.

"You are... so young," she didn't want to cry on her behalf. What right did she have to feel sorry for her? How right did she have to pity her?

"Well, perhaps for some," Maicel said, leaving no room for arguments.

"Why would y-"

Maicel smiled and finally looked at her, "tell me, would you die for your country?"

The question took her by surprise, die for her country? Well, it was expected of her to do so, the Will of Fire was taught as soon as they started the Academy. Sacrifice Konoha's interest and put yours above was considered treason, and even if it weren't -for some bureaucratic reason that Ino couldn't think of-, and somehow your body didn't end up at the bottom of a pit, stripped from any marks of identity, you would be pushed to madness by the hate of those around you. If she remembered correctly, her dad had told her about a man that killed himself facing those same consequences.

So she replied with the best response she could think of,

"What?"

"Would you die for your country?" Maicel repeated, "or for me, now? If someone tried to attack me, would you die defending me, even if we just met, because there's a contract that that tells you to?"

Ino bit her lip, "I… I mean is really unlikely for that to happen but… I guess is my job."

"That's right, your job is to serve and die for your country. And you look around my age, right?"

"I don't think is the same," she tried.

"You sacrifice yourself for what the village asks you to do, and I do it for what my family needs." Maicel looked at her smiling, the sun rising, orange and pink colors illuminating her face in a way that made her look even more like a drawing, Ino couldn't believe that a girl pretty much her age will commit herself with a man for the rest of her life, but then, she did the same for a village.

It still wasn't fair.

"You love him at least?" She asked, her voice on the verge of breaking. Someone could love a person from the letters they share, right?

"No," Maicel's smile shrunk. "But I hope I will."

And for the sake of her, Ino hope it too.

The sun rose above them.

* * *

When they arrived to the village, the sun was hiding again, Maicel looked at the doors of her soon to be home with wide eyes and a blank face, the only giveaway of her fear was the slight tremor of her hands. Ino took her hand on her own out of instinct.

"Welcome to Konoha," she said, looking at her. Maicel smiled.

"Miss," Asuma spoke, "I believe the people over there are expecting you." He said, pointing at a group of people inside the village. They were looking at them with expectation, some of them were smiling, others… not so much, Ino spotted a man (maybe in his early twenties), that seemed to be Maicel's fiance. He was looking at the girl she was holding by the hand with a curious expression, assessing her. She wanted to kill him.

And then Maicel let go of her ( _we are rivals from now on_ ) and bowed, her hair as perfect as always in that bun and her Kimono barely wrinkled from the travel. Her neckless -made of rope-, have never looked so much like a death sentence like it was at that moment in Ino's eyes, it seemed to be tighter around her neck. "Thank you." She said, and left without looking behind.

* * *

Ino didn't know what was about Maicel that had made her so emotional, was it the fact that she was just a young girl that had to get marry with someone she didn't love because it was her duty? Everyone had to make sacrifices in life, Maicel wasn't the exception. Or was it because Maicel was just a mirror of what Ino herself had sacrificed? Her childhood was lost in the breeze surrounding the swings.

Maybe it was because nothing in her life was making sense, nothing in her life felt nice, felt good, she hasn't smiled out of happiness in what felt like ages, and there was no Sakura there to hug her and tell her 'yeah, life sucks, get over it' but still hug all of her pieces together, there was just Maicel and her cold hand that Ino had to let go.

"Ino, you're home." Inoichi's voice came from the living room, he was walking on his full jönin attire, ready to go.

And Ino finally, _finally_ wept.

Inoichi was nor Sakura or Maicel, his hugs were a thousand times better.

* * *

**A/N:** In the manga when we are told Sasuke's story (around chapter 225), there's a panel after he returns to the Academy where two classmates say that they heard their fathers saying that the Uchiha clan was killed and that Sasuke was the sole survivor. It's canon that everyone knew about the massacre of his clan. However, it's unknown if it was a common knowledge that it was Itachi the one who did it, but I took the liberty to give that knowledge to the characters in my story (at least, those belongings to higher ranks and important families, whether if characters like Sakura know about Itachi's existence yet, that is still undecided).

**Stay safe!**


	8. Smell of Dahlias

** Smell of Dahlias **

* * *

In the orange glow of the sunset, a pair of cicadas could be heard in the overgrown grasses of the park. The afternoon heat had receded several degrees making the air breathable, the skin under his Hitai Ate was covered in sweat. There was blood under his nails and fatigue on his eyelids, so he kept his hands on his pockets and his head low, maintaining an automatic pace. More and more, the bags under his eyes deepened, their color turning darker and darker, shades of black, blue, and green intervened with his pale skin tone. He was tired. It was a common state by now.

In the near distance, the sound of a chain moving made him look upwards, the hand on his pocket turned into a fist without an expressed command, two years of constant missions will do that to one's body. There was a gush of wind and a faint smell of Dahlias, Itachi blew to get rid of it. "What's your name?" A little girl, she couldn't be more than five, asked him. The girl was looking at him curiously, her eyes narrowed and a small smile on her lips, like she enjoyed trying to surprise him. A mischievous young one.

Itachi blinked and decided that there was no point in indulging her behavior, so he facked no surprise. "Hello you," he said with his head cocked to the side, "are you alone?" He looked around the playground, one of the swings was moving slightly, the source of the chain sound -no doubt. She must have been just playing with it but, other than that, the place was empty, nor a trace of any other kid or parent around.

The girl shrugged, the tips of her mouth downwards at his lack of outburst, she must be a spoiled child -she was close to Sasuke's age, but she didn't seem as remarkable as him, but again, no one really was. "I like playing alone," was her response, a tiny finger pointing at the sandbox, "I can draw things in the sand, I can use the swing all I want and I can-"

"-little girl," he interrupted her and watched her mouth go even further down, her eyes shining, "is late for you to be out here." He glanced up, the sky tinted in bright colors, the sun slowly disappearing in the distance.

"You are alone too."

Itachi closed his eyes and the colors of the sky disappeared behind the darkness of his eyelids, he sighed, exhausted with this interaction. She was stubborn, wasn't she? "I'm allowed to." Was his simple response, the fist on his pocket relaxing.

"I'm allowed too!" She replied, yet again, despite his clear intention to leave.

"What's the point of lying when there's such a fragile thread of success." He sighed and moved past her, she looked at him with wide eyes, perhaps trying to grasp the meaning of his words, but there was no point in staying to see her fail or succeed, he had returned after weeks of being on a mission, and there was another child who claimed and owned his attention.

"I'm not lying."

Itachi sighed once more. There was no point in giving in to her wishes, if what she wanted was someone who will pay attention to her, then he was not the one to ask. Perhaps her parents or friends could serve that purpose. He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, her head was crooked to the side and she was sucking the tip of her fingers, the side of her mouth had a little bit of dirt that Itachi hadn't noticed until then. He walked away and she kicked a little bit of dirt that reached his sandals.

"Sorry," she mumbled, but Itachi wasn't focusing on her. He glanced at the trees, he was searching now -how many times would he keep his guard down just because he was finally on the other side of his village's gates?- and not after much he noticed the slight movement on one of the treetops. Well, the girl wasn't lying, she liked playing alone but that didn't mean she was, after all. "Stay and play." She smiled at him with her eyes narrowed, the mischievous one.

At that, Itachi wasn't sure how to respond, she was bold, she was confident, she would be a ninja for sure. _What a pity_ , he thought, almost tasting the bitterness of her fate, she will be a good asset for Konoha if trained correctly, but Itachi had seen promising ones succumb to the laziest of the kunai. He ignored her, it will be the first time someone will not cuddle her. She will learn to bear the disappointment.

"What's your name?" The shout came from the playground behind. He did not stop his pace, the wind gently moved the leaves of the trees around him giving him more air to breathe in the cruel heat of the day.

"It's a secret," He shouted back, barely looking at the girl melting in the distance. It couldn't be helped, he liked to play some games of his own. Itachi waved her goodbye.

* * *

Itachi woke up when the first ray of sun hit his face without remembering what he had dreamed of, at the top right of his field of vision was a purple spot, like a fingerprint, he blinked four times in a row trying to make it go away, but the stain didn't move. Itachi bit his lower lip. He kept watching the purple spot without blinking anymore, perplexed by it and saddened for what it meant, tears of irritation fell from his eyes to his cheeks in a continuous parade but he still didn't blink once, too deep in his sorrow to care.

He forced his right hand to reach for his eyelids and he gently closed them with two fingers, his eyes now watching the darkness that followed and the spot, always the spot. Bright and purple. There was a warm sensation on his arms that started every time he needed a hug, but he could do nothing about it other than ask Kisame to actually hug him, which was even worse than, said, not getting one.

So that's how it starts, huh.

Itachi didn't have time to contemplate for much longer how the blindness that has hunted most of his family members had reached him, nor he could dwell on the fact that this was the first thing he had in common with his ancestors in a long time. Still, this came sooner than expected, he needed more time for his plan to come through and be able to fight his little brother. Between his blindness and his lungs, he would be dead by the end of the year.

But Itachi was not going to give up so easily, he had managed to kill his entire family without dropping a single tear, he could hold himself long enough for Sasuke to end him. It was his plan, and nothing, not even death, will twist his will. He got up, the couch creaking at the movement, and got dressed, the black tunic with red clouds staring at him from the only chair in the room, he grabbed it and stared at it for a second before putting it on. The distant sound of Kisame getting up as well reached his ears.

He was about to open the door when someone knocked on it. "Hello? Is anyone there?" Itachi froze. The owner of the place they crashed in, probably, from the corner of his eye, he could see Kisame reaching for Samehada. No witnesses, Pein had said, but maybe they could sneak out without the man actually seeing them?

Now, that was a stupid thing for Itachi to think, to do that they have to be one hundred percent sure the man hadn't seen their faces or their tunics in order to keep the identity of the group as secret as they could for the longest time possible. It only took one simple gossip and a shinobi willing to listen to disentangle the web of their mystery. What a great way to start his day.

He cracked the door open.

* * *

_What's your name?_

_Uchiha Itachi._

_Former jönin of Konoha, killed his entire clan, disowned, killed his entire clan, S-rank criminal, killed his entire clan, has a doujutsu, killed his entire clan, killed his entire clan, killed his entire clan, killed his entire clan, killed his entire clan, killed his entire clan._

Sometimes Itachi wondered if his name was a summary of his entire persona, moreover considering that every shinobi in the world or bounty hunter with a bingo book knew his name. "I know you, you are Itachi Uchiha." He heard it a thousand times, in different voices and in different tones, but the same words were pronounced over and over when he made his presence known. But they didn't know him. They knew his name.

Could it be enough? Could it be enough to know his name to know him? He wore so much the mask of fear and coldness that his name carried that he wasn't sure if his own self was merged to it, it might be. Perhaps it was for the best. He hated his name. He wished he wasn't Itachi Uchiha.

_Uchiha Itachi._

_Former jönin of Konoha, disowned, S-rank criminal._

He almost cries when he killed his mother. But that wasn't in the bingo book. He wished he wasn't Itachi Uchiha, he hoped, he begged, he prayed. Did he already lost his mind? He probably didn't have one to begin with. Shisui would know, he always knew what to say, he misses him, he misses him so much he feels sometimes he might share a tear at his memory. He wants to stop, he wants to drop dead because this have been enough for him to live through, but Sasuke-

Oh, Sasuke.

Itachi always found it impossibly hard to believe the love stories that most girls read back in school about finding a soulmate, that just didn't happen, how could someone be tied to a person through their soul. Itachi didn't have a soul. No one in his family did, except perhaps the baby that owned him. The baby that deserved the world and to kill him and return to Konoha as a hero. He was tied to Sasuke, he was completely and utterly owned by Sasuke, even if his little brother was too deep in his sorrow to know. He woke up in the mornings with the only purpose of seeing him again, to give him his life, to make him commit to Konoha in the way his family should have but didn't.

And now the purple spot on his eye made him realize he was running out of time.

Itachi was having a bad day, little was the control he had over his body. Sometimes it happened, sometimes he needed to pause despite his desire to continue. Sometimes his body betrayed his mind without a warning or permission. There was no break in this world, there was no time out of Akatsuki. He couldn't afford to have one, not with Kisame around, not while he was on a mission. He needed to keep walking, he needed to stop thinking about Shisui and Sasuke. He was biting eagerly his bottom lip as to focus. He closed his eyes and breathed, in his mind the known prayer that, _if there's any god out there listening_

_Don't let me fuck this up._

"Itachi," Kisame's head appeared out of nowhere, looking at him with curious eyes. Had he realized? No, he can't realize… _should I kill him? I should kill him so he can't tell them that I'm weak, I can't afford to be weak, I have a mission…_ "Itachi what the fuck?" Kisame's expression was perplexed. His gray chin had a little red spot where the blood of the man they killed in the morning had splashed him that he didn't wash off. He was moving towards him with his eyes wide opened. "Do you see that?" He said, looking something pass him. "It's a beach!"

"What?" He asked, barely in control of his actions, and looked to the place Kisame was pointing with his finger.

"I can smell the water, seawater, oh god _PLEASE LET'S GO THERE_."

"What?" He asked again, perplexed, feeling the cold sweat on the back of his neck making his way to his waist.

Kisame looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Are you deaf man? It's saltwater… I haven't swum on salted water since… so long."

Itachi couldn't see a beach anywhere near them, so he kept staring at the distance where Kisame swore there was one.

"Trust my nose, is there. Now, I know we have a mission and yada, yada, but-"

"Alright."

"Y- what? For real?" Kisame's tone was full of disbelief, but Itachi wasn't in a position to maintain for much longer his expressionless facade. He needed a distraction and if Kisame said there was a beach somewhere where he could swim for a couple of hours until his lungs, hopefully, exploded or Itachi could regain control of his emotions once more, then he wasn't going to let it pass.

"Don't make a fuss about it."

"No, no, of course not. Let's go then," and without even waiting for him, Kisame started to walk.

"No one can see us." Itachi reminded him, not quite moving in an attempt to keep his heartbeat in check.

"I'll use a henge."

"If there's a ninja…"

"It won't be!" Kisame assured, "but even if there is…" he paused, "it has been so long since I swam…"

Itachi couldn't bear any more blood today.

* * *

"How long has it been?"

"For us? Too long, for regular people not long enough."

Shikaku barely smiled and licked his bottom lip, moving aside to let Inoichi in, the Yamanaka didn't wait for his long time friend and walked inside the Nara house until he reached Shikaku's office, barely looking at the space he was so used to visit. The walls were freshly painted, it seemed, by the faint smell of paint that lingered in the air. He reached the closed wooden door and turned, facing the man he had came to visit.

For a moment of complete confidence Inoichi considered hugging him, after all, Shikaku wouldn't object to the proximity between them and much less to the direct contact if it was Inoichi the one performing the action, but he stopped himself from doing it and just reached for his shoulder. There was a time to play and this was not, he couldn't just give for no reason, he needed to keep a tight hold of his resources. "Sometimes, old friend, I wonder what my life would be without you," he said, amused at how Shikaku's sole response was to blink.

"Sentimental, aren't we?" The man licked his lips again and glanced at Inoichi's hand still placed on his shoulder, the tip of his beard caressing the skin of the back of his hand, it tickled him. He was a sensitive man.

"You know me, I'm a romantic." He smiled amused, squeezing the shoulder lightly and finally letting go, Shikaku blinked and looked at him directly in his eyes. Then, he walked past him and put his hand on his pocket, Inoichi watched how Shikaku's skin was encompassed by the green color of his pants, the veins of his arm showing. It was an enticing picture. There was a light metal sound and the hand came out with a key between its fingers. Shikaku opened the door without saying another word.

Shikaku walked towards the middle of the room and sat on the floor, not bothering with a cushion and not offering one either, Inochi almost chuckles, they were completely past these formalities. Shikaku relaxed his posture and invited Inoichi to join him, gently tapping his heel on the ground. "I have seen you force men to kill their entire platoon, forgive me if I can't picture you as the romantic type."

Inoichi laughed without actually enjoying the joke. "Well, we were at war, you can't exactly expect me to give the enemy flowers and hope for the best." He sat next to his friend, "and as far as I can remember, you weren't particularly nice either."

"You know me, I'm anything but sentimental…"

"Ah yes," he smiled like he believed in his lies, rolling his shoulders twice and cracking his neck to release some tension, "you're a cold, logical man, aren't you? You're a calculator."

Shikaku chuckled despite it being an awful pun. "Of sorts…"

Inoichi sighed and looked at his friend, time and duty had made their wonders on Shikaku's face, wrinkles on the side of his eyes, and a permanent frown on his expression had settled in, making him look older than what he was. Inoichi knew better than anyone, except maybe Chöza, what Shikaku had gone through during his life; but again, every single one of them had gone through similar -if not equal- things, and as Inoichi contemplated the aged face and soul of his friend, a pair of brown eyes stared right back at him.

"They aren't getting along, aren't they?" Shikaku said, scratching his chin.

"No." Inoichi replied, "I don't know what to do with Ino, honestly."

"She'll come around…"

"If not, she'll die."

Shikaku frowned his lips, "she won't." He paused, "I'll talk to Shikamaru."

"I don't know if that would make any difference at this point."

Shikaku laughed, "they are barely gënin, we have time to turn things in our favor."

"Still… I just don't know how to communicate with her," he grunted, "she seems more concerned about not being put in the same team as that Uchiha kid than to create a bond with the boys that are going to be standing between her and the enemy."

"Ah yes… Sasuke Uchiha," Shikaku mumbled, "the sole survivor. How is he?"

"He's… still the same. Not fine, not insane just yet, mad enough to want to be powerful to seek revenge but not enough to betray Konoha." He licked his lips.

"Yet…" Shikaku added, watching his mouth move. He was so easy to tempt.

"Yet," Inoichi agreed, "that kid is a timebomb Shikaku, I don't know what the Hokage is expecting."

"I think you're smart enough to assume the best on what the Hokage is actually doing, old friend. Besides, who knows, maybe Sasuke just needs a nice, cute girl to set him on track."

"Don't you even dare to joke about that." Inoichi almost bares his teeth. "And I don't assume the Hokage's best intentions, old friend, I hope for them. That's all."

That Uchiha boy, it was almost comical how that clan could give Inoichi so many headaches in his lifetime. Shikaku's brows lifted up at Inoichi's last phrase, his interest perked. Inoichi inclined closer to his oldest friend and rested his weight on his right hand.

"So," Inoichi continued, his fingers gently tapping the floor, "I think we need to have a conversation..."

"Aren't we having one?" Shikaku, the smart ass, sometimes Inoichi wanted to hurt him.

"Don't be ridiculous impertinent, my patience has been stolen by my daughter, there's little in the jar for your old tricks and witty jokes."

Shikaku looked at him in a way he often did when they were alone, as if he had been chastised by someone with authority over him, over his motions. Like a child. It pained Inoichi to see such a mighty man succumb to his most basic tricks. It pained him to see how much Shikakau considered his actions around him. But it was better for his purposes. It did not matter, he will soon compensate him for this outburst.

"Honestly, Inoichi, if Ino manages to inherit even one small part of your capacity to wrap people around your little finger, Shikamaru is doomed."

Inoichi laughed as he always did when Shikaku brought up this subject. It was so predictable, the poor, wonderful man. Always moving around Inoichi as if he was a fragile diamond that he wanted desperately to keep intact, thinking that compliments will take him off a bad side in which he never has been to begin with. He squizzed his old teammate's knee in a friendly manner and felt Shikaku's leg relax at the touch.

"Oh, please Shika, I've never used my charm to have my way with you."

"You did and you do, but I love you, that's why I'm allowing it." What a man indeed, Inoichi will definitely compensate him. It was the least he could do. More considering the subject they will soon be discussing. It was a marvelous thing to see such a mighty man been reduced to grunts and pants, that perfect brain of his diminished to the most basic of the instincts.

Inoichi laughed.


	9. The world we live in

** The world we live in **

* * *

Chöji was told that of all the things he could have inherited from his mother, he inherited the one that was the least desirable one to be the clan head. He tried not to think about it, to not look too much into his father's eyes as to not notice the way he wondered almost at loud if his son would ever be man enough as to lead a clan, but it became difficult recently, his father seemed to be a little more on edge.

_"Kindness is weakness."_

No one will ever notice those changes; his father was such a funny guy that most people overlooked his demeanors, but Chöji and his mother were able to tell, and although Chöza never said something to his face, he could hear the whispers that were told on his back, the way his father sighed every time Chöji contemplated a beautiful landscape, or how his skull ached every time his dad stared at him when he thought he wouldn't notice.

He was on his knees, his room completely dark, curtains and doors closed, the only source of light coming from a candle beside him, sharp shadows covered his left side, blending that part of him with the gloom. In his hands, a book, lid closed and pressed tightly against his thumbs. Chöji watched its cover, the light blue color and the golden letters, he raised his left hand -detaching it from the somberness that still clutched at the corners of the room-, and caressed their form with his index finger, they felt soft, nothing as felt such in a long time. He opened the book and absently turned the pages, saw black letters that begged for an attention he will not provide.

A sudden pain took him by surprise, the orange light of the candle felt warm, and when he raised his hand to see what was done to his skin, he saw a small stream of blood coming down his index finger. There was some of his blood on the pages too. Chöji kept staring at his hand, the glow of the candle made it hard to see the wound. The paper was quick to absorb the fluid, crimson color stained the pages forever. He had merged with the tale, there had to be a metaphor somewhere.

They used to play together sometimes when they were little, he remembered, forced by their parents. Still, Chöji remembered all too well how Ino would just run towards them and ask Shikamaru eccentric questions to see his face twisted in confusion, or how Shikamaru would stand and merely walk when Ino asked them to go with her to "an exciting adventure that our parents can't know about." Which usually ended up with them in need to be rescued. But then they grew up, Sakura came around and then as suddenly as she came she left, and Shikamaru started to hate adventures.

" _I always hated adventures Chöji, all that walking, such a trouble."_

" _But if you hated them that much why didn't you say anything?"_

Shikamaru's sole response at that had been to click his tongue.

Chöji lowered the book he still held in one hand, carefully putting it on the floor, and sighed. He grabbed the candle by the holster with his non-injured hand and blew the flame. When it disappeared, and with it all the light, Chöji was left in darkness. Much to his dismay, he was still afraid of blackness, wasn't it funny how his best friend lived in the shadows?

(No. It will not be funny at all.)

* * *

The first thing Shikamaru thought when he felt the weight on his back was 'this seems kind of excessive,' the thought immediately following, however, consisted of letters mashed up together without carrying any sense or congruence. Asuma hadn't told them they were going on an approximately six-day mission until they reached him on Konoha's borders. A light backpack was everything they prepared, not knowing exactly what was going to be asked of them. They had expected, and probably hoped, a D-rank. Another C-ranked mission in such short notice seemed a punishment for something Shikamaru couldn't recall doing and definitely not meriting such sanction. In addition, their sensei had also decided that their training hasn't shown satisfactory results yet, despite him being the one who was in charge of supervising their workout regime, and so they had to cross the Konoha forest jumping from tree to tree by channeling chakra to their feet while carrying a huge bag of stones on their backs.

He posed on a branch and heard his knees complain at the weight he carried, he glanced back and saw Ino struggling to jump ahead, falling and hitting her jaw with a branch, disappearing from his line of sight, leaves followed her down in a soft descent mockingly. Chöji wobbled and was forced to grab the trunk of a tree as not to fall as their female teammate, Shikamaru smirked faintly when Ino -in her haste to return to the coup of the tree-, channeled too much chakra to her feet and cracked the wood, immediately falling again. "This is excessive," he said once Asuma stood on a branch next to him, watching down as to locate a very complaining Yamanaka heiress. At his last word, Shikamaru felt pressure on his chest and was forced to take a mouthful of air, hand against his chest.

"If you talk you won't be able to breathe properly," Asuma said, his eyes still scanning the ground. Shikamaru furrowed his eyebrows at his teacher, he had reached the same conclusion once his lungs were deprived of oxygen, he didn't need to be told what he already knew. Regardless, Asuma did not glance in his direction, and once Ino was able to reach a new branch, her hair disheveled and pale skin shining with sweat, he motioned them to move.

"I think I might die," Ino said in between short breaths, chest moving frenetically, her hands on her knees. "Why do we need to carry these rocks?!" She suddenly screamed, like she wasn't short on oxygen a second ago.

Asuma smiled, "I believe I had already made myself clear," He replied calmly, waving his hand as if to clear the air of her outburst, "we keep going until I say so." He licked his lips and pointed forward with his head, Ino jumped and kept jumping ahead, passing them with surprising speed and sending their teacher a nasty look. Frustration and anger were her fuels.

They didn't fully stop until much later, taking only ten minutes of rest for each half-hour of movement. He felt his chest burning with each intake of air and saw the sun setting in between entangled branches that framed Mother Nature. Orange dim light bathed green grass and the sudden cold air made him shiver and awoke goosebumps through his wet skin. The three of them were scattered across the ground fighting fatigue, the bags full of rocks abandoned alongside their own backpacks at their side. Asuma merely glanced at them before watching the sky with a small smile on his lips. A group of what only could be merchants passed by in between the trees, Asuma looked at them warily and one of them raised his hands in a placating gesture. They were dragging a cart full of boxes and an old lady sitting in between them, fanning herself with what looked like an envelope. She glanced at them and her face dyed white.

"Shame on you," The woman hissed, her gaze piercing through them with venom, she clutched the envelope more forcefully and crushed it against her bosom.

He watched them move and disappear, the old lady never stopped glancing at them, tension in every muscle. When they were gone he looked at Asuma who was breaking a leaf with his thumb, the jönin replied to his curious look with a shrug of his shoulders. When returning his eyes to the sky, the light orange had become darker.

"At this rate, we will reach Suna in twice the time that it actually takes," Asuma breathed out for them to hear, Ino made a grunt with the back of her throat.

"W- why are we going there?" Ino -sort of- asked.

Asuma, who had took a cigarette out of his vest pocket, licked its tip before putting it gently in between his lips, "I thought I told you about the mission before departing." He lighted the cigarette and took a drag, closed his eyes, and stopped breathing for a couple of seconds. When he finally exhaled, the smoke leaving his mouth and joining the cool breeze, he opened his eyes and watched them. He was a rather imposing man.

A rich guy from Kaze no Kuni, a man named Atsushi Ena, had paid an insane amount of money for some sort of commodity that another Konoha team had to retrieve from Nami no Kuni and bring back to the village only to sent it away a couple of weeks later with team 10. The man had given specific instructions of when to retrieve and sent the package alongside notes on how to preserve his commodity for the time it will be in Konoha's possession. Shikamaru supposed it was not such a weird occurrence considering that the value of the package had to be at least twice as valuable as the two C-ranked missions he paid to just have it.

"Why didn't he hired Suna shinobi to do it?" He asked, sweat dripping down his spine, he scratched the dry-salted skin on his forehead. "Isn't him from Kaze no Kuni?"

"We are cheaper," he shrugged, like it wasn't of importance. Shikamaru twisted his mouth in consideration, shouldn't they increase their fees to match Suna's? Lower fees could translate to lower quality of their service to potential customers, and that could be economically damaging in the long run. However, Konoha didn't seem to be particularly struggling -although Shikamaru didn't know about the internal flow of their capital. Perhaps Konoha's earned reputation and success in the last war, in addition to the cheaper costs, cemented his village as the number one option. "There's no patriotism in business," Asuma added, Shikamaru blinked.

Chöji, who had been on his back during the whole interaction, suddenly turned and laid on his stomach to look at them, "but how are we supposed to enter Suna?" He asked, face red and labored breaths.

"We have permission," Asuma shrugged again, "our client bought it."

"He bought a permission," Ino said suspiciously, when Asuma nodded, she went for it again, "he _bought_ a permission for us -another shinobi faction, to enter Suna. And they sell these types of permissions." She didn't try to conceal the sarcastic tone in her voice, daring Asuma to take her for a fool. Shikamaru almost tsiked.

"Their restrictions aren't as harsh as ours, they usually grant concessions in exchange for a large amount of money," Asuma explained. "There's an important factor for them to look for more income, can you tell me what it is?" He asked with another intake of his cigarette and a lick of his lips.

Shikamaru blinked, why would a shinobi village need more money? That was easy, to buy more equipment to strengthen their attack, defense, and research, but that was common currency and Asuma had specifically said that it was an important factor to them, not in general. Hence, it didn't have to do with why would a ninja village seek for more money, but why would Suna specifically _need_ more money. He had to go back to the basics, what separated Suna from the other villages? They were located on Kaze no Kuni, the second largest country, but didn't seem to be held in high regard by their own civilian comrades, since they hired other ninjas from other nations to carry out their needs. That, as Asuma implied, does explain why they sell permissions to enter their borders if they can't maintain a constant flow of income by missions only, but it still doesn't explain why they specifically need the money. In addition, Suna is quite small, smaller than Konoha even, it could be that they were trying to expand their territories, but every village was secretly trying to do so, so they weren't particularly different in that department, besides, nothing stopped them to actually enlarge their city, they were surrounded with the nothingness of a desert.

"Ah," Shikamaru slapped his forehead, "basic resources. Konoha's geographical location and the country's climate allow us to harvest our own food, medicinal plants, and so on. Suna, although it must have native plants, probably doesn't have too much variety, not to mention that it must be very expensive to maintain a potable water system in the middle of a desert."

Both Ino and Chöji looked at him, he could see them from the corner of his eyes, Asuma gave him a small smile and a nod as compensation for his response. "So you mean they use their entire money just to survive?" Ino asked, perplexed, like the sole idea of being able to earn solely what you need to live was unbearable, Shikamaru find himself thinking that he could not blame her. Blushing a furious shade of red she licked her lips, twisting with her finger a golden lock of hair, "but… uhm… if they spend that much money just to be able to live… aren't they… like, a liability?"

Asuma glanced at her, his dark eyes watching her with contemplation. It was an interesting doubt for her to have, it seemed, because their sensei smirked as if proud. Shikamaru narrowed his eyes, he hadn't received the same indulgence. "No country that wants to have any weight for commercial or political negotiation can afford not to have a shinobi village." He replied the obvious, Shikamaru couldn't understand how Ino couldn't put two and two together, but he decided not to hold it against her. Intelligence was not her strong suit. "And now," he continued, "let's set up our camp."

* * *

The sound of long intakes of air followed their reaching to Suna's massive gates, exhaling their exhaustion before standing straighter, trying to look sharper, dangerous, menacing. Three suna-nin glanced at them with their eyes completely open and a twist in their mouth as trying to repress a smile for their pitiful attempt. Ino couldn't blame them, team 10 looked shameful, weak, forgettable. Ino denies her responsibility for it. Gray walls stood in front of them with its deafening silence, imperturbable and unwelcoming.

In a moment, the kunoichi from the group jumped down, breaking formation with nimble motions, landing in front of them. Soon after she was followed by the men who lacked her lightness and made a dull sound against the ground. With her head cocked to the side her hair cascaded down like an affluent of shadows against her paleness and from her position Ino could see her neckline, she looked to entice them. Her first thought, however, was that she was not that pleasing to the eye, her jawline was too square and her lips too small for her frame, Ino took it as a small victory for her. "And what brings you along?" She asked with a voice that clashed against her harsh looks, her eyes fixed on the Konoha jönin.

"We were hired to deliver a package by one of your citizens," Asuma replied calmly, looking her straight in her eyes, the woman didn't seem upset by his lack of reaction at her purring, "Atsushi Ena." He said, and deliberately slowly showed his hand while reaching for the scroll in his vest pocket. The Suna squad had their hands above their kunais, without taking them out. "I believe he arranged for us to be let in." He continued once he took out the scroll, carefully opening it with two fingers, the paper seemed to be rough against them.

Saliva was suddenly visible from her peripheral vision, shining thick fluid against the brown sand, she couldn't help to scrunch her nose and glance at the Suna man that had dared to perform such undignified gesture in front -and for, her. The shinobi responsible for the present smirked, showing an incomplete brown denture, Ino visibly licked her white perfect teeth. The man stopped smiling suddenly and Ino took a step back, the smirk returned.

The woman narrowed her eyes at the words in the scroll as to set them on fire, a quick look at their teacher was enough for her to decide that reading while he held the paper was not convenient and stretched her hand without providing further instructions. Asuma gave her the scroll and turned slightly to wink at them while the woman read the paper that was now in between her fingers and made her already disgusted expression even more displeased. "This states that you'll have half an hour of clearance to be inside the city," her tone was soft despite her effort to turn it somber, Ino pursed her lips, "exceeding this time by even just one minute will be considered a violation of the agreement and will be treated as a standard attack."

Ino couldn't help to make a small sound with the back of her throat that seemed to please the guards, the saliva-loving man glanced at her and gave her a brown grin, she could see his tongue through the gap on his teeth. For such a man to look at her with so much superiority... _preposterous._

"Thank you," Asuma replied with a nod, and once the tree of their attendants moved aside to let them through, he started walking. Ino glanced quickly at both Chöji and Shikamaru, it took them a full second to actually start moving behind their teacher, hastily running forward to catch their sensei with their backs straightened as not to give away their exhaustion. It was a ravishing contrast to Asuma's figure, who seemed to have grown a couple of inches in the small window of time it took for him to walk between the Suna-nin and the gates they protected. Ino wondered if he was compensating for her and her teammates' fragile complexions. He most definitely was.

Suna did look impressive, that much she was willing to give them considering what Shikamaru had said about them not being able to maintain themselves without assistance. Ino knew the importance of a good impression, and that was what Suna was: a great facade. Its buildings were solid, not particularly pleasing to the eye, but solid, surrounded by the highest wall Ino has seen in her twelve years of life. For a shinobi village, it was a practical, well-thought design that will discourage any regular army to try to invade them. Suna's entire characterization was based on being rough. Desert, endurance, spitting on the floor, all that jazz, it wasn't far fetched to think their entire city would be built to solidify that trademark.

"You think they're following us?" Chöji asked her and she had to blink at his approach, the boy's eyelids were dangerously slow in each blink, he was succumbing to tiredness.

"Most certainly, yeah," she shrugged, trying not to raise her voice above a murmur.

Chöji nodded and kept walking, dropping the subject entirely. They followed Asuma around the sad streets of the city, receiving numerous looks. From curiosity to disgust, Ino witnessed the entire spectrum of human emotions. A group of boys that looked slightly older than her and were cute enough for her to notice glanced at them with pointed disinterest, Ino felt a pang of sadness. _I don't look like this, boys_. She thought batting her eyelashes despite common sense, minus the fact that she hadn't slept properly or bathed in five days, the skin itching under her clothes was entirely her own.

Asuma entered what looked like a coffee shop and Ino was shaken by the sudden perfume of coffee beans, it contrasted roughly against the musky, sweaty scent that was forced upon her during this trip, so she inhaled the smell as far as she could. It was strong and too warm of a beverage for such heat. The corner of her mouth moved faintly upwards. Coffee shops weren't supposed to be much different in between them regardless of the place they were was established, but Suna's was spectacularly somber, devoided of color, and groups of chatty friends as Konoha or Hi no Kuni's possessed. Ino did not like Suna in the slightest, she had never felt more proud of her place of origin. In between tables and chairs Asuma moved and they followed, silence engulfed them and her heart sped up with nervousness, her stomach twisted unpleasantly.

In the other side of the room, under a flickering light, a man sat on the table located in the farthest corner, a bodyguard on each side of him. The stranger looked at them from above his sunglasses, a small smile decorating his lips while he scratched his goatee beard with the rim of his mug. Ino could distinguish a bright light blue shirt, silk, that struck her as odd, for no one in Suna seemed to dress in such a manner. "Told you, Botan, they'll be here on time." He said tilting his head to his right, without looking at the man behind him. Such man, Botan, barely glanced in their direction, crossing his arms as response to their arrival.

"Mr. Atsushi Ena, I suppose," Asuma said without bowing.

"Please, call me Howard, Atsushi is just a legal formality."

"Howard," Asuma seemed to taste the weirdness of the name on his tongue, his expression showed none of his perplexity.

Howard's smile grew wider, "excentric, is what I was looking for."

"I see," Asuma wasted no time in reaching for his vest pocket, his fingers grasping a blue scroll. "I guess your men are trained to open this."

"They're trained for much more, actually," Howard -really, Howard?- snapped his fingers and the other bodyguard, the nameless one, reached for it. He looked younger than Botan and had a huge scar around his right eye, it was pink, new. Without it, Ino thought of him to be quite good-looking. The man did not glance at Asuma while grabbing the blue scroll, his eyes fixed on the paper, he tapped it and mumbled the _kai-release_ , and a rectangle of cloth, -a painting, emerged in a puff of smoke.

Howard smiled and grabbed the canvas, looking at it while clicking his tongue. "Such an expensive little thing," he whispered, and gave it back to his bodyguard, who sealed it again.

"Now that that's out of the way," Asuma deepened his voice, "I would like to know the reason why you asked specifically for our services."

"Now, now," Howard said, "we don't want to start a scene don't we?" Ino took a step back, Howard looked at her. "Why don't you take a seat, I would really like to chat for a bit."

"I think not," Asuma deadpanned. "A simple answer would suffice."

"Don't be rude dear," Howard brought the mug closer to Botan, who filled it with the content of a flask, "do you know how expensive the permission to have you inside here for an hour was?"

"It's really not our problem."

"Please," Howard said, taking off his sunglasses. Asuma looked at them, then at Howard and finally at his bodyguards, and sat across from him, he did not tell them to follow his example, so they stood behind their teacher. Ino's legs wobbled. Howard smiled.

"So," Asuma looked uncomfortable, "why did you request for team 10 specifically?"

"I'm a big fan," Howard sipped from his mug, "I'm a businessman, is my job to know everything that goes around me and look for a way to make it profitable." He said, playing with the edge of his sunglasses. "Like this, for example, there's a reason why I wanted to receive this painting inside the village. The moment you leave, a group of shinobi will enter this cafeteria and will most certainly take the painting with them."

"That doesn't sound like a good plan," Ino intervened, Asuma looked at her sideways, his expression promising a scold later. More rocks to carry, likely.

"It doesn't, does it?" Howard replied calmly, "but I will, eventually, get the painting back, and people in the capitol would have heard about the _censured_ , _prohibited_ painting by then and will gladly rip it off my fingers. At the very minimum, I will sell it ten times what I paid for it, C-ranks and permission included."

"Why Team 10?" Asuma halted Howard's explanation and made him focus on the initial point, the businessman didn't seem offended regardless, and complied with a nod.

"Like I said," and there was something in Howard's motions, a patience underneath every movement that made Ino wonder if this was his plan all along, if he knew what Asuma would say and how he would react. "I'm a big fan. I know about Konoha, I know about every ninja village, and of course, I know about Ino-Shika-Chö."

In fairness, Ino-Shika-Chö's existence wasn't supposed to be a big secret, after all, Konoha took advantage of the fear that the prospect of their unit being sent to spy on their enemies installed. The sole possibility of the three clans looking for dirt made anyone think twice about trespassing Konoha's trust. But their team number shouldn't be known just yet, not until the Chünin exams were secrecy will be impossible to maintain since they will be showing their skills to the proctors and senseis from other nations. How did Howard knew about them? Why did Konoha allowed the businessman to decide the number of the team that will bring him the package and, more importantly, how did Asuma knew that Howard had asked for them? Shouldn't Ino -they, know about something that might be a risk to their lives? Or their lower rank prevented them from knowing?

"Don't look so tense," Howard read her body language as if she wasn't a trained ninja but a mere scholar. In a heartbeat she felt cold all over her body, the exhaustion she felt left her bones in the exhale that followed Howard's statement, her heart hammered in her chest and she hid her trembling hands behind her back. Howard sighed and looked at the ceiling, "everyone seems so fascinated with the prospect of raw, uncontained power," he went on, looking at every one of them, tilting his head, " _fireworks_ ," he whispered and moved his hands, "a one-second, colorful blast. I'm too smart to let myself be influenced by such trivialities, I'm not looking for fireworks, I'm looking for something that lasts, something far more useful." He smiled, "I could make a mountain of gold out of the _three of you_."

"Our time is running short," Asuma replied surprisingly calm while standing. "So I think this will be all. Let's go, kids."

"It has been a pleasure," Howard smiled, widely, taking a sip of his mug. "I'm looking forward to work with you in the future." He said, looking at her before carefully dragging his eyes at the other two members of the formation.

Ino walked out forcing herself not to look behind.

* * *

"Sensei," she finally gathered the courage to ask him what was on her mind since the second the coffee shop's perfume not longer lingered in her nostrils, Sunagakure a mere figure in the distance, Shikamaru and Chöji pointedly looking the other way, still on hearing range. Asuma merely finished adjusting more rocks on her backpack -retaliation for her impulses did come in the form of a stone, and slowly adjusted it on her back. "What did he mean by that?" She blurted.

"Nothing, Ino," Asuma sighed, "the world he lives in is nothing like our own."

(He was lying. They were power.)

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It is canonically stated that Suna charged higher than Konoha for their services as is that the Damyio of Kaze no Kuni outsourced all of his missions to Konohagakure because it was cheaper, which deprived Sunagakure of valuable funds to support themselves. Sunagakure's reason to invade Konoha was merely financial, despite Orochimaru's influence, it was something that would have happened regardless once the Suna-nin reached the bottom. The notion that they sold "permissions" to enter Sunagakure to shinobi from other factions is, however, completely fictional.
> 
> Stay safe!


	10. Of plans and its debris

** Of plans and its debris **

* * *

Shikamaru was offended, wounded, personally attacked. There was no mystery in the cravings of his nature and the one of his father before him, his grandfather, and so on. His muscles ached, fell apart, and built seconds after their destruction, it was pure agony and no prospect of a pause any time soon. He wished he could complain, but it was the same nature that screamed at him to lay down what kept him from talking.

The route to return to their hometown was one full of rocks on their backs, gasps, and awkward silences. Chöji looked at him with such curiosity that he didn't need to be a Yamanaka in order to read the question across his features, he shook his head in response, because no, he didn't understand what Howard had meant either. He could, however, figure it out if he desired, he could repeat the man's words in his head until he could come up with the meaning behind them, something he could theorize, a hypothesis, but everything he was going to end up with would mean more work to do, and Shikamaru had enough with his work at his present and at his future. Consequently, he decided to drop the subject in its entirety, Howard will remain as a hollow offer that he will soon, hopefully, not remember.

Ino stepped on the same branch as him and both ended up on the floor, limbs awkwardly entangled, their fall echoed through the treetops that moved with the wind as if to get a better look at their shameful figures, she glanced at him and furrowed her eyebrows like it was his fault the branch didn't hold, grass on her blond locks. "Ufh," she complained, "I can't get up."

"Sure you can," Asuma said, landing beside them.

"No. Seriously," she looked at him, her eyes squinting at the sun, "I'm physically unable to."

Asuma had been filling their backpacks with an extra rock every time they complained, the three of them were smart enough to keep their mouth shut after the second time, but Ino had to endure her penalty from what happened in Suna all the way back. She was exhausted, Shikamaru could see her fatigue coming out of her in waves, she was shaking from the force of simply holding her arm up to block the sun off her eyes.

Asuma had the kindness of not pressure them much further beyond their breaking point and helped them up, "there, there." He said and Ino took a mouthful of air, looked around miserably for any sign of Konoha in the distance, and took off before Asuma could say anything else.

"I think she's upset with you," he said, looking at their teacher.

"I know. I expected it." He replied simply, "and you aren't?" He asked, scratching his beard.

"Oh I am," Shikamaru replied in total calmness while his insides twisted.

"You don't seem that mad," Asuma retorted.

"I'm impossibly so, I just lack the energy to demonstrate," Shikamaru shrugged, "I also know that I can do little to retaliate."

Asuma smirked, "keep going." He said and forced him to move.

Their arrival lacked the pomposity they experienced during the first C-rank, granted, it was from the new family of the girl they escorted and it wasn't particularly directed at them, but Shikamaru couldn't help but notice the calmness that followed their appearance after ten days of absence. Shikamaru snorted, it was a thought worthy of Ino, not him, and he resented her influence on him. What this arrival did have, that the other hadn't -besides their endless pain and exhaustion, was the presence of a black-dressed figure with a mask. Black patterns flowed through the white designing barely accomplishing a boar, the ANBU stood with both his hands on his back in waiting, when he talked, he did so to their superior, Ino cast him a look for his rudeness. She was still a child with no understanding of the chain of command.

"Sarutobi Asuma, the Hokage would like to see you and your team." The man said, his hands still on his back and, without waiting for a response or acknowledgment, he turned and left. His mission had been complete.

The Hokage's office wasn't what he had imagined, it was far more illuminated and white than he had thought it would be and it barely smelled of tobacco despite Shikamaru's lack of memory of the most powerful man in Konoha without a pipe on his lips, his fingers were forever stained with a yellowish color as Asuma's were. Hiruzen had probably smoked cigarettes in his youth, it was a surprising fact that both shared, Shikamaru looked at them both in look for physical resemblances but found none. He was tired, he decided, and that's why he wasn't able to spot their similarities.

In the back of the old man shone light and glass, it drew patterns on the floor and the tips of his toes were it reached. The place seemed so bright that there was almost no room for shadows and he felt unwelcomed, it was a strange feeling. He glanced up and saw darkness, finally, something that suited him. He raised an eyebrow and the roof seemed to move, he gasped and looked down again, the Hokage smiled kindly, his wrinkles stretched.

Hiruzen stood from his seat, moving around his desk to be in front of them, he was wearing white robes. "I'm glad you came, I want to apologize for not talking to you in your previous mission, I was swamped with paperwork," the old man spoke incredibly softly, Shikamaru remembered that his last interaction with him had been a scolding. Shikaku's response at the embarrassment had been a sigh. Asuma made a sound with the back of his throat and Hiruzen glanced at him, smiling. "Yes?" The Hokage asked.

"The C-rank went as planned. Although we carried out our work for four days more than planned I notified both the administrative staff and the relatives of the gënin, so nothing was done outside the rules." Asuma's response seemed planned, automatic, he had reacted harshly at them when a mention of his father made its way through their lips, but the behavior still seemed out of place coming from an adult under his command.

Hiruzen's face did not waver, he replied to the report with a widening of his smile, his eyes roamed them three, and not another glance was dedicated to their teacher. Both of them seemed to be dancing around each other without knowing how to interact. "Is that so?" He said, "I've heard about your new training system. How it was for you, team 10?" Hiruzen didn't call them kids Shikamaru noticed.

"It was… alright," Chöji answered, the weight of their backpacks still lingered in their bones as a silent reminder of what they will have to endure in the future.

Hiruzen laughed shortly, unlike Asuma, he did have a hoarse voice. "I thought you would say something like that." He turned and walked towards his seat again, the light coming from the window bathed him, the robe became full of the glass' pattern until he seated and the chair protected it from the drawing. "I'm glad you had a good experience, a second C-rank without any confrontations is something you should celebrate. Few people have such luck." He cleaned some crumbs or dust off his desk, Shikamaru could not see anything to be cleaned, it was probably to occupy his hands. "Now, if you would excuse us, your sensei and I have something to talk about. Keep up your good work!" He added and dismissed them, the three of them glanced at Asuma before retreating, after all, they couldn't overrule an order from their leader, could they?

* * *

Not long after his graduation from the Academy, Asuma started to smoke. At first glance, it was just a way to irk his father or grab a little bit of his attention, but Hiruzen's reprimanding look barely covered what his expectations were. In truth, young Asuma was an impressionable child who admired his father as any kid admired theirs, and smoking seemed a good way of sharing something with the man responsible for half his DNA. Despite that, the more he grew -teenagers were still teenagers regardless of their ninja status, so antagonizing their parents was a rule they followed to their core, their chakra system made their tantrums more dangerous than average, but a ninja village was more than capable of subduing their outbursts,- the more he sought to differentiate himself from his father and his status.

His last name supposed a threat to every enemy he encountered despite the fact that they hadn't crossed paths until then. More than once a fight ended before it started because ' _that's the Hokage's son, we can't fight him.'_ He could have excused their unwillingness to fight him had it been because of his clan's reputation, but it wasn't the case. They feared retribution in the form of a grieving Hokage capable of wiping them off with a flick of his wrist, it irked him to the point of frustration because he wasn't able to prove his worth but ultimately because Hiruzen wouldn't grief his son's demise. Their sole base of their presumptions was false.

He left the village the morning after he informed the Hokage about the Daimyo's offer for him to join his personal guard and Hiruzen hadn't flinched, it didn't suppose a deflection but it wasn't considered a temporary license, either, but still, Hiruzen's face had shown no emotion regarding his son's departure, and that settled the type of relationship they will still carry to this day.

It wasn't until the day Töu returned from the city and yelled "you are in the Bingo Book, brat!" And kissed him softly earning his smile and a slight lick on her lips, that he heard from his father again. This time, however, the Hokage overcame the parent louder than any other time and he screamed to Asuma, threatening to drag him back to the village to fulfill his duties as a leaf ninja. _My son in the Bingo Book_ , he had said when meeting, a scowl on his face for such undignified reward, like Asuma was tarnishing his name by association. The Daimyo, however, subdued Hiruzen, telling him that Asuma's presence in the Bingo Book was caused by actions performed during his duties as the protector of the Fire Lord, and the Hokage had no power to dispute the resolution.

He only came back to the village after the group divided and their members fought each other to death, carrying Töu's corpse back to bury her somewhere pretty enough to deserve her, because she had been his first love and he had been her last.

"Talk me through it," Hiruzen said, unbuttoning his robe.

"He knew about the Ino-Shika-Chö alignment," he replied.

"Not surprised there, many do, civilians with power do tend to get information about shinobi' formations."

"Yes," Asuma complied, "but he knew the number assigned to my team because he asked specifically for it. He shouldn't have."

Hiruzen grabbed his pipe and lightened it, Asuma's fingers itched to reach for his own cigarette but he contained his need, the Hokage smoked and scratched his chin, "that supposes a problem, yes."

"There's a breach somewhere," Asuma said eagerly, "someone is selling our information, if that man knows, what's stopping someone else from buying his way out of our intel?"

Hiruzen smiled, "numbers assigned to our teams is hardly our best-kept secret, Asuma dear." He waved his hand dismissively, "I'll have people look into this regardless, just to make sure no one is bold enough to go for Naruto's team, seeking for his bijuu or Sasuke's Sharingan."

"Right," Asuma almost spat venomously, " _that_. But he went for my team, not Kakashi's."

Hiruzen blinked, watching him with his old, wrinkled eyes, Asuma never felt more repulsion for his father as he felt now, "yes, he did. But he was also harmless."

"For now."

"Don't make of this something that it isn't," Hiruzen said calmly, smoke leaving his mouth, "besides, those who are actually interested in finding our teams' arrangements don't have to dig deeper, for instance, Kakashi is quite a noticeable man, people will undoubtedly know his team members without the need to search through Konoha's intel. And considering their feat in Wave, well, I doubt there's people not knowing their names by now."

"We are talking about team ten," Asuma pinched the side of his leg as to keep his temper in control, "I understand the importance of two of the members of team seven, but we are talking about _my_ team and the three clan heirs that compose it."

"Well, it isn't as if you don't have a reputation of your own," Hiruzen replied with a slight furrow of his eyebrows, his fingers tapping the wood of his desk, Asuma clenched his jaw. "Your kids are safe, I order you to worry no more about the subject, I promise you I will look into it personally if necessary, but now we have more pressing matters to discuss..."

* * *

Few things woke Ino's past self as the declaration of their enlistment in the Chünin Exams. Her voice rose high enough for the lights on Yakiniku Q to flicker, Shikamaru watched perplexed how the light bounced off the wall. She threw her hands in the air and smiled widely, proclaiming herself as the future queen of the exams, Asuma tried to explain to her that they didn't work like that, but Ino wasn't listening. After Asuma's words of encouragement and belief that they could pass it with flying colors, it seemed like she closed her brain to new interactions. Regardless, she looked pristine, clean, happier, he wondered if it was because Konoha was a better place to live than Suna.

"I can't wait to tell-" she paused, her smile disappeared and then quickly returned, it didn't reach her eyes anymore, "dad will be so happy!" She claimed, resting her hands on her cheeks and her elbows on the table, sighing contentedly.

"Do we have to?" He decided to ask slumping his shoulders, dragging the words out. Ino did give him a look of disgust by his lack of eagerness to participate in an exam she didn't quite seem to understand, and it made him happy, he liked to push her buttons. "Can we say no?"

"Of course not," she replied, her hand slapping gently the table. It was fantastic how entitled she was.

Asuma sighed and dragged a hand through his face, "you technically can refuse, yes," he replied, Ino went slightly pink. "But if you say no, then none of you can participate, only complete teams can take the exams."

At this, Ino raised both her eyebrows in surprise, her mouth open, "well that settles it then," she deadpanned, "we are all in."

"Excuse me?" Shikamaru grabbed his chopsticks and pointed at her, she found the gesture to be rude and her eyes narrowed, "I haven't reached a decision yet."

"What is there to decide?" She stretched as to reach his personal space but the table in between them forced her to return to her previous position, the wood had dug on her stomach, "you think our dads won't be watching us? Can't you think of the repercussions of us saying no?"

"I don't think there will be any repercussions," Shikamaru narrowed his eyes, "we aren't ready yet."

"Perhaps in your clan, Chöji and I might not run with the same luck." She opened her arms and pointed at Chöji who seemed surprised at her inclusion and then, just as quick, saddened.

For a moment, Shikamaru dreamed to grab her by the wrists and squeeze until she yelled in pain for her troubles, for her to speak so freely with the purpose of manipulating Chöji into picking her side was a new low and a disgusting tactic. How could she take such advantage over the fragile self-esteem of the adorable chubby boy? She couldn't not know of Chöza's judgment of his son's worth, it was likely that Inoichi had told her about it as the gossiper he was, why would he not? Shikamaru could not think worse of Ino. "Don't you dare use Chöji." He warned, his hand turned into a fist. Ino looked confused.

"She's not manipulating him, Shikamaru." Asuma's hand was warm against his and made his heart slow his pace, he hadn't noticed the way his heartbeat had accelerated, "she doesn't know."

At that, Ino glanced at both of them, "I don't know what?" She demanded, and Shikamaru dignified her by looking at her and ignoring her, he unclenched his jaw. Under deeper considerations, it was unlikely that, if Inoichi knew about Chöza and Chöji's relationship, he would have said something to the girl who looked for any excuse as to derogate them, he had -perhaps- judged her too quickly, but he was still under the belief that his appreciation was justified. "I don't know what?" She tried again, this time looking at Chöji for answers. The boy reddened and glanced to the floor, and with a roll of her eyes, Ino stood. "Since this meeting is clearly over," she spoke with disdain, "I will leave you to your own devices. I'll leave my inscription in the Hokage building tomorrow, Asuma-sensei."

"Ino..." Asuma sighed.

"I'm fine." She replied dismissively, "I'm going home now, enjoy the meal." And with a last nasty look thrown at him, she left.

"Alright, listen-" he tried to speak once she disappeared from view, but Asuma's hand tightened over his and the action was of comfort no more.

"What do you think you're doing?" He asked, his tone unforgiven, "I get that you don't get along, but you can't misjudge her character like that. It was so uncalled for-" he said, massaging his temples, Shikamaru quickly recovered the hand assaulted by the jönin, "I swear, I thought she was the major problem, but you're no better..."

"That's..."

"True-" Asuma silenced him with a pointed look. "This is the last time I will allow this type of behavior of yours, tomorrow, you will handle your inscription to the chünin exam in the Hokage building. If not, I will simply expel you from my team. We'll see if your family is such above repercussions as you stated."

There was no answer he could give to change Asuma's mood or reprimanding look. At least he hadn't said a word to his father, so he was spared from the scolding of the only man that could make Shikamaru's eyes wet enough to share a tear. He wanted desperately to explain his reasoning, but Asuma sent him home without allowing him his defense. Ino was to blame, but Ino was not in charge of the threads pulled on his brain that allowed him to reach such conclusion. He could ask for her forgiveness, but little will do when she had probably duel on the meaning behind his words all alone, adding fire to her resentment. Would she tell Inoichi? It was unlikely she had done so, for no tall, blonde man knocked on the door to make him pay for his misstep.

It became clear after the clock marked three hours past midnight that he will not be sleeping, so he sat on the chair in front of his desk and turned on the gas lantern by turning the knob. Its light was orange and unforgiven, he blinked at its intensity until his eyes were used to the brightness. Dwell on what had transpired the day before will do nothing for him, he will still have to endure the consequences of what he had implied, so he dipped his pen in the inkwell and wrote his name in the paper Asuma had given him, he signed it hastily, already upset for what was asked of him.

Ink stained his fingers and he watched it drip on his skin.


	11. A labyrinth in the mist

** A labyrinth in the mist **

* * *

_Chünin exams. Stage one. Classroom number 7._

Sakura's forehead hit the desk with such a force that the sound bounced on the walls of the otherwise silent room, the rest of the chünin-wannabes glanced at Sakura's direction with curiosity as did the instructors, and that was the last thing Ino saw before losing consciousness and entering her rival's body. Controlling her former best friend was a pretty simple task, Sakura's mind was not particularly difficult to access and, for a fleeting moment, Ino felt compelled into looking further inside her. Despite her desire to do so, Inoichi had warned her about not looking for what she wasn't ready to know, so she abstained from picking inside Sakura's thoughts. There was something unsettling inside the girl, Ino felt a slight pinch, like a bug, creeping up her spine when she wondered in Sakura's mind.

When she opened her eyes, she blinked a few times and looked down at her paper. She smiled -or rather, Sakura did-, and licked her lips. There, some questions were neatly replied, cursive handwriting and perfect calligraphy, it was almost annoying how much Sakura tried to be that much book smart when nothing will come out of it. Not if you wanted to be a field shinobi. Regardless, Ino was right thinking that Sakura was the perfect person to control, a smart brain but weak enough to be put under her Jutsu.

She had to admit that she did consider Shikamaru for her purposes -after all, he was called a genius despite Ino's personal belief, and whether she liked it or not, the boy had to do something if he wanted them to pass and not embarrass their sensei-, but Ino didn't fancy being inside him. It will twist their relationship into something more intimate for as long as she was controlling him. She was not ready to so.

Memorizing what she could as quickly as possible in order not to leave a trail behind that could be linked to her -even if Sakura wasn't smart enough to know what happened, she couldn't risk the proctors noticing-, Ino got back to her body. She replied to the questions she could remember and wasn't able to answer on her own and quickly corrected the few she had had wrong, and put her head on her palms, smiling at her piece of paper. _Information gathering._ She felt a sudden jolt of electricity through her spine, something close to happiness bloomed inside her chest and made her arms tremble slightly in rejoice. It was a pleasant feeling, a feeling she hasn't experienced in so long she could still bite the sour taste of her past and present frustrations. At least now, in this room surrounded by struggling boys of different nations and looking at Sakura awake, she was the girl she used to, the one that ended up being the second-best in her class, the one who was not supposed to fail. She allowed herself to sigh contently, sure, Team 10 wasn't particularly her dream team but this was the kind of thing they were born to do, they simply weren't _able_ to fail on this.

She smirked and glanced across the room, looking with a joyful expression at the rest of the gënins trying desperately to come up with the answers on their own, who tried so forcefully to just _communicate_ with their teammates without getting caught. "Number 21, 45, and 108, be kind enough to leave or you will be escorted out." One of the proctors said. The people with such numbers attached to their clothes stood up to leave and were followed by their teammates, faces twisted in display of an interesting variety of emotions.

She had a glimpse of Naruto pretty practically crying over his test and almost feels bad before she remembered that he was Sakura's teammate, so she didn't really care, although he also was Sasuke's teammate, so she did pursed her lips a little. Out of curiosity and excitement, she looked for the boy she dreamed of kissing, her eyes searching through the room with cautious ferocity, her heart jumping on her chest. When she saw him, there was a storm inside her, he was so pretty it was so unfair for the rest of the world...

And then she saw Chöji and the thunder faltered and guilty arose, there he was, biting his upper lips and shaking like a leaf, writing on his page and erasing everything frantically, scratching his forehead almost desperately, the skin under the nail furiously red. _If one of the members of the team fails on his test then the entire team is disqualified._ Ibiki Morino had shouted, it was hard to forget the man that once visited her dad when the scars on his face were pinkier, newer.

There was guilt on her chest and she was quick to push it down. It wasn't her fault nor her responsibility, Chöji was chosen to be part of the information gathering team for the same reason as she was, he could -or should-, be able to handle it, but for what she was seeing, he wasn't worthy of the position, should someone be credited for spying abilities on the team apparently built for that same purpose, it was solely her. The dark taste of frustration came back forcefully to her tongue, and she narrowed her eyes, still looking at the back of his head. He was completely on his own because they had designed this for him to be so. Her fingers ached in the table to move in the well-known seal.

A shadow moved and Ino opened her eyes wide with surprise, quickly glancing at the proctors in the room. One of them seemed to be looking at the black figure moving across the floor, a smirk on his pale lips, moving the pen on his hand on the notebook he held. Was this considered as a single foul? Will he kick them out? She tensed momentarily until nothing happened so she forced herself to breathe. This might work, Shikamaru could actually help Chöji and she would have to do nothing and still profit from the action by not being kicked out of the test, they both had each other's backs, she was the one left to her own devices, and she still turned things in her favor. They will work this out as they did, without her, and that was just as fine. Ino Yamanaka refused to depend on them, she refused to depend on anybody.

* * *

"Change of plans," Itachi announced, his crow-summon dispersing in a puff of smoke, he shut his eyelids forcefully until the smoke that the bird left behind dispersed enough not to dry his eyes and, for a moment, Itachi forgot about the state of his vision. It was when the smoke cleared that he noticed the purple spot again, smaller, but still in existence, preying. Itachi was forced to turn on his Sharingan to see as perfectly as he needed, it was annoying, but it didn't entail much chakra for as long as he wasn't using it to perform any technique. Kisame hadn't said anything about his now perpetual red gaze.

"What?" Kisame narrowed his eyes, "what do you mean by change of plans?"

"We have a new mission." He said, showing his partner the scroll he received and putting it in the sleeve of his robe.

"No. You're fuc- you're kidding me. We're practically there!" He complained. They had to detour from his path three times, wasting two weeks worth of their time, for the sole purpose to disperse their scent and footprints through as many places as possible so no shinobi smart enough to pick up on their trail could find their hideout. It was an exhausting way to preserve one of the only places they could live for more than a couple of nights, but the idea of sacrificing it for the sole purpose of walking less was a notion stupid enough to make him snort. "Where?" Kisame asked, aware that his tantrum would get him nowhere when the decision was made.

"Iwagakure."

"What?!" Kisame slapped his forehead, "we have to go all the way there?"

"Yes." Itachi blinked and tugged on the sleeve of his robe to secure the scroll trapped inside.

"What's the mission?" Kisame asked again, he will get no sympathy from his teammate.

"Apparently and not surprisingly enough, Iwagakure's economy isn't growing in the same amount their population is. It's the Tsuchikage's wish to expand the village territories up north."

Kisame bit with his molars, the movement all too noticeable on his jaw, "that's fucking convenient, isn't it?"

Itachi understood his partner's distaste for the Tsuchikage. It wasn't the first time Akatsuki worked for him and not the first time they performed a mission of similar actions. It wasn't a secret how Iwagakure struggled on the economic aspect. During its first years of foundation, the village encouraged the reproduction of its population in order to grow the numbers in its ranks, but what began as a tactic to have more military power became a cultural aspect of its people. Consequently, as years passed, their numbers grew to a point where the income couldn't cover the costs of maintaining such a large community, and thus, they tried more and more to expand their territories as to both not overpopulate the village's capital and exploit the mines that were scattered around the country.

The first problem was, mines were exploited by the country's civilian-government to sustain their own bureaucracy and shinobi villages were supposed to self-maintain in order to stay independent enough to decide their own courses of action. If the Tsuchikage asked for help from the Earth Daimyo, then in retaliation he will have to give up that independence, which was out of question. The second problem was, mines were surrounded by civilians establishments that were in charge of exploring and extracting.

The Tsuchikage was not a stupid man, take over the mines will suppose a direct conflict with his country's governor, and while shinobi were usually stronger than common military forces, these were not to be underestimated. If the conflict lengthened long enough or caused significant damage, that would weaken the village enough for another shinobi-village to be tempted to attack. His preferred course of action was as simple as hire mercenaries strong enough to wipe off the civilians, pretend surprise and worry when the Earth Daimyo asked him to investigate the incident, and send a large group of shinobi to work in the mines and establish there to protect them from smugglers. They'll send a large portion to the Daimyo to prevent any suspicions, and will steal the rest.

"I guess it is," Itachi replied, shrugging.

"Why can't he send Deidara? He is from Iwa, he knows better than us the place."

"I don't think Iwa would appreciate us sending their own missing-nin."

"Fuck them," Kisame spat on the floor. "At least he could have sent Hidan and Kakuzu, they would love something like this," he said, "bet Hashin and Jeepers Creepers will be content enough."

Itachi pursed his lips, the prospect of innocent civilians dying at the hands of Hidan was not something he felt quite comfortable with, a quick, painless death would be fairer for them. Fairer, Itachi almost snorts. "Pein believes this to be a good opportunity for you to learn more about the Yonbi."

"I thought we already agreed that-"

"Kisame," Itachi interrupted him, the swordsman narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, "we are going to do it."

"I know," Kisame bared his teeth, "I just don't like killing civilians. Ninja? Sure, civilians? Not really my cup of tea."

"Stop complaining." Itachi deadpanned and started to walk the opposite direction they were moving before.

"Right," Kisame mumbled, "I forgot you weren't exactly against killing innocent people either."

Itachi pretended not to hear him.

* * *

_Chünin exams. Stage two. Forest of death_

"I honestly can say, with a hand over my heart and a clean conscience, that I loathe children." She had purple hair and a sandy-colored coat, under it, a mesh bodysuit that practically forced him to look. Shikamaru blinked and watched her, the glimpses of bosom's skin enticed him, this woman was the first one that awoke his desire. Shikaku will laugh if told. Her coat swayed and she licked her lips, breeze carried her scent towards his nose, she smelled of nothing in particular. "To your right," her voice rose, it wasn't very lady-like, her attitude repelled his interest, "a group of shinobi will take your team information and hand you a scroll. Your job is to go through this forest and reach the tower located right in the middle of it with two scrolls, a heaven one and an earth one, but only one will be provided to you. If I'm making things difficult please feel free to ask."

"I…" a boy raised his hand.

"Out!" The woman pointed at the little boy with dark hair and big gray eyes, there was no explanation for her decision, the boy was dragged off the field. He still had the same expression of disbelief when leaving. "Anyone else?" The woman continued with a smirk on her lips, Shikamaru's desire was well in the past at this point. "You have three days to reach the tower, and every single team member must arrive, if you reach later than that stipulation or with one member less, you are disqualified. How you will reach the tower it's your problem, how you will get a scroll of the other type is _also_ your problem. It's forbidden to open the scroll before you reach the tower, and pretty much nothing else. To your right. Now." And she just simply walked away, sinking her right hand on the pocket of her coat and grabbing a Dango that she was quick to consume, her teeth sank on the desert and Shikamaru watched.

"Next!" The man at the table called, gënins moved hastily to form a single line and the team in the front quickly moved towards the proctor sitting on the desk, making him wait for a second could probably throw them off the exam. In the meantime, Shikamaru glanced around, in his mind, he played once more what was asked of them. The woman, meshy bodysuit and awful attitude, had told them that they should reach the tower within three days and with two scrolls, a heaven one and an earth one -which scroll was given to a team meant something or was just random?-, and that they couldn't open those scrolls until they were inside the tower. Three rules, nothing else. Killing was permitted. Confrontations were assured.

He looked down the line, there, a red-haired boy was looking at the front, his arms crossed over his chest, expression neutral with a slight inclination to murderous, he tapped his foot impatiently, their eyes met for a brief second and Shikamaru's heart skipped a beat. He didn't like that boy, he could admit deep within himself that he was likely afraid of that boy, he was too smart to ignore his gut. Further down, he could recognize some of his old classmates, Hinata was nodding to something Kiba was saying, Naruto was nudging Sasuke for some reason while Sakura tried to push him away. From what he could remember, none of them presented a big threat except Sasuke and Shino, no member of team 10 will get a victory against one of the two.

"Next!" The shinobi called and the team in front of them moved.

Shikamaru shook his head and looked around the forest this time, he had heard about this place, he even went as far as trying to enter it once when he was a kid, but Shikaku had been quick to stop him and Chöji from putting a foot on it. He categorically forbid them to enter, and here he was, about to run through it for Konoha's benefit. Still, the place, while ghostly familiar, looked foreign. The borders weren't marked with barbed wire as he remembered being, instead, a gray wall stood as high as a tree, doors with numbers on top were displayed all over the construction.

"I'm sorry," he heard the girl of the team in front of them ask politely to the shinobi, "what did you say our gate was?"

"Oh," the shinobi smiled at her, "Don't worry, I'll have a friend of mine escort you," he said with a flick of his wrist, and one of those ninjas with masks and black bodysuits jumped down, pointedly making them move aside. They disappeared from his line of sight. Shikamaru noticed that they weren't walking towards any door. "Next!"

"Team Asuma from Konoha," Ino was quick to talk, which wasn't an actual surprise, her body close to the table but not resting in any part of it, she was looking at the list the man kept on the desk, not at his face.

"You think you can do a better job?" The man purred, moving the sheet of paper, Ino shook her head and looked at him instead, cheeks slightly pink, the man smirked.

"No, sir," she replied simply.

"Here you are. Asuma's brats. Gate five, here's your scroll," he said, and paused for a moment, studying something in the sheet of paper he possessed. A smirk reached his -too- red lips, stretching his covered in acne marks skin, and with the tip of the scroll he patted Ino in the shoulder to make her move aside. When, in her surprise, she stumbled to the right without uttering a word, the man stood from his table and stretched even further, pointing at Shikamaru with the scroll. "There you go," he said, and Shikamaru grabbed what was being offered to him out of reflex. Ino's eyes followed the movements the action entailed with a slight furrow of her eyebrows, and then slowly, pointedly, looked at the man. "Yes?" He smiled at her widely now, as if he did nothing on purpose, but she just blinked, her face reddening, and walked away.

Great. Fucking fantastic.

"Ino?" Chöji called after her while the man yelled in the distance for the other group to approach him.

"Gate five," was her sole response, not acknowledging them further, walking faster to their assigned door.

"Ino," Chöji tried again.

"It's fine," she groaned.

"Listen, Ino, he was just trying to make you snap at him to disqualify you-" Shikamaru tried to explain, "you saw he was reading something in that sheet of paper."

"Oh really?" Ino turned, still red, her eyes big, shiny, of course it would be his voice that set her off, "last time I checked, the scroll is given to the team leader, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised-"

"You're reading too much into this!" Shikamaru replied with a groan, "it's just a scroll, it's not even a mission scroll-"

"Oh, now I'm the one reading too much into things, am I not?" She hissed, her jaw clenching, "it _is_ a mission scroll because exam or not, we _are_ on a mission!"

"This is just an exam they're forcing us to take! We shouldn't even be here, I don't even want to be here!"

"See?! You didn't even want this, you didn't even want to be here, but oh, the great Shikamaru Nara just bats his eyelashes and everyone just follows him, everyone just assumes he's the one in charge, and they push me -literally- aside."

Shikamaru almost laughs at the absurdity of it all because that's exactly what he thinks of her, pretty little Ino just moves her hair and people will just come crashing down to fulfill her wishes. This was not the time to be having this conversation, Shikamaru knew that they were things for them to scream at each other, he knew that at some point Ino would just snap no matter how much he tiptoed around her. Furthermore, some parts of him even wanted the confrontation, he wanted to ask her _what the fuck was her problem_ , but this wasn't the time. "Ino just take the responsibility! Just take it! I really don't care, I don't _want_ to be the team leader-"

"-that doesn't mean you are not, apparently everyone thinks you should, _your dad is_."

"You're bringing my dad into this?" Shikamaru blinked with barely contained anger, almost spatting on the floor to show his disdain at her words, how dare she? "What does that even have to do with any of this? That's our dads' problem. Do you want to be the team leader? Then behave like a fucking leader, a great way to start is by not letting yourself be all worked up by a stupid thing." He didn't particularly scream, but hell, by that point he could have been.

"Right," Ino roared, "because being worked up by a stupid thing is what stupids do, and I'm such a stupid girl, isn't it Shikamaru?"

"Ino just-"

"You haven't let go of the scroll, by the way."

She turned and her ponytail almost hit him on the face, he saw her walk away, her shadow moving under her in the grass. It was noon. He looked down, and true to her words, he kept the scroll firmly grasped between his hands, the thought of simply giving it to her hadn't even crossed his mind. At the distance, he heard a laugh and when he turned his head to look, there she was, the purple-haired woman was watching them, laughing and eating dangos.

* * *

The sentiment had warmed his way up his neck and arms from the pit of his stomach, reaching his eyebrows and turning them into a scowl, he was a calmed man to the core of his nature, and in a weird way, it made sense that the people who he was supposed to be closest to, pushed him to the point of collapse. Chöji was done. Both of his teammates tended to forget that he was as much part of this group as they were, his name was also carved in their shared stone, and generation after generation of his family had served Konoha alongside both their ancestors.

He thought his cowardness was the biggest obstacle he will have to surpass in order to bring something to the group, but there was no group for him to bring something at all, it was a hard truth that he tried to ignore for as much as he could, for accepting it as a fact will undoubtedly push him to his knees.

Shikamaru was a selfish boy and he will grow up to be a selfish man, Chöji loved him still despite the cracked bones of his best friend's personality, he understood his flaws and grew attached to them because Shikamaru's selfishness meant that he will always protect and be there for him because Chöji was Shikamaru's best friend -a possession, that Shikamaru will never let go and was reluctant to set completely free, and that suited Chöji's aspirations just fine. But Ino did not belong inside their symmetry, their relationship was a drawn line between the two, and Ino arrived to twist their bond into a shape that wasn't a perfect line anymore, her stubbornness made her dig her nails onto her position of the outsider because she wanted to be above them and Shikamaru helped her feel as alone as she was because he didn't want her there either.

A selfish boy and a stubborn girl could never reach a point of understanding because one of them would have to give up in order to advance, and it wasn't in their pores to sacrifice a part within themselves if it meant for the other to win something in return.

He had tried to give them space, he had tried to slightly push Shikamaru to seek for a medium ground and he had tried to reach for her. And while an improvement was barely grasped, since at least Ino didn't look at them with as much disgust as she used to, it quickly smashed itself under the weight of both of their flaws. No one was actually trying except him and none of them thought, for a moment, how much weight his shoulders carried.

"Don't you dare to cross that gate until we told you to," the purple-haired woman sang across the field, he watched the letter V above their gate with his brows still furrowed, adrenaline was running down his veins but it had still nowhere to go, he wanted -he never really wanted it, he never really craved for it, but here he was, _wishing_ \- to punch something, someone, he wanted to smash something so hard that this feeling would simply fly away from him through his fists, never to return.

"You okay pal?" Shikamaru asked him, his mouth twisting in discomfort, but he didn't reply to him, he couldn't bear the sight of him, of Ino, of both of them.

"GO!" There came the shout and there came the sound of a battle-horn and he pushed -broke, the gates with enough force to send them flying away, he ran into the maze, mist obscuring his view, his legs begged him to move, to jump, to move, to sprint and he complied.

"Chöji wait!" He heard Ino calling him in the distance but he wanted nothing but to be far, far away from them, from their natures of selfishness and stubbornness, from their arguments and this team. He ran without looking, he ran without thinking, he wasn't scared for the first time since he reached this place and it felt _good_ , he wondered if his dad could see him now, could see him running without fear, without pause, without being on Shikamaru's shadow, without being overshone by Ino's ferocity, without being just the fat one of the group. He could be a clan leader, if his dad could see, he was sure he would think so too.

He tripped with something on the ground and came crashing down with a high-pitched scream, his face ended up covered with mud and his breaths became shallow. He looked at one of his wrists when he noticed he lacked strength, and saw it skinnier than he remembered. He had been wasting chakra, he had expulsed it out of his body without realizing he was doing it, he looked down, to where his ankle was trapped, but all he could see was white.

He twisted his head, everything was covered in a white veil and he couldn't see beyond his hand, _mist_ , he almost slaps his forehead. He tried to free himself by moving but a shot of pain went through his leg, he patted his way towards his foot and felt something -a branch?- around his ankle, trapping him to the ground. "The fatty boy can't get up," someone said from somewhere around him but as much as he tried to look he couldn't place from where the sound came from, "the fatty boy can't get up." It came from behind him, from above him, from his right and his left, it came from everywhere and nowhere, "the fatty boy can't-"

"Shut up you asshole!" He replied and fear ran through his veins, oh what was he thinking, what was he thinking?! How could he ran away like that? Now someone was here with him and he couldn't fight because he was trapped, he twisted his foot again, trying to free himself, he reached for the branch and fought hard to break it but the stupid thing wouldn't _let go_.

"The fatty boy. Can't. Get up." The voice said again, and Chöji's blood ran cold. It was a weird voice, a guttural sound, feral and metallic all at once. Chöji breathed and breathed and sweated and sweated and tried to set himself free.

"I don't have my scroll! I don't have it!" He said on the verge of panic, "my teammates aren't with me! Please!" He swallowed, "I don't have it!" There were footsteps, somewhere, everywhere, Chöji shivered from the cold and the humidity of the mist, for a moment he let himself believe that things could be fine and where did that get him-

"The fatty boy. Can't. Get up." Something -it wasn't human it couldn't be- repeated, and Chöji screamed.


	12. Shaenanigans

** Shenanigans **

* * *

_Chünin exams. Stage two. Forest of death_

It was the scream what made him panic and shook his laziness out of his foundations, Shikamaru ran, _flew_ , inside the mist without a second thought, without a moment of pause to regain his thoughts. He sprinted towards the sound and prayed to whatever god existed to be able to reach his best friend in time. The white veil around him blinded his every move, he punched the air and waved his hands to free himself from its hold on him, but more and more mist was poured down him like water.

His chest suddenly felt small, way too small, because his heart was trying to break his rib cage on its insistent beat, but he still didn't stop, didn't let himself think -and an unthinking Shikamaru was not Shikamaru but he didn't care, because that was his best friend's voice, that was his best friend's scream, and everything Shikamaru's mind could force itself to do was to keep moving forward.

_Faster, faster, faster,_ he begged his muscles to move at the speed of the light, in the back of his mind he thanked Asuma for the rocks on his back and the way he made them accustomed to the weight in order to move because now he could run and barely touch the ground on his haste. The mist wavered, shook, it turned almost transparent all around him like it wanted him to see something and Shikamaru choked on his panic because this was fucked up, and everything around him was quiet and so apparently calm that he felt he was losing his mind. Then he _saw_ two shadows further on, one on the ground and the other-

No.

It couldn't be real. Something inhumanly high leaned towards the figure on the ground (Chöji, Chöji, CHÖJI) opening his mouth widely as to bite, a horrible sound of bone breaking reached his ears and made him stop in shock, he _saw_ the thing's jaw reaching its hip. Shikamaru could smell even from the distance the putrid scent coming out of its mouth -corpses, it had to be- as it swung its long, bony arms towards Chöji. His best friend screamed again and that pushed Shikamaru to move once more. He ran again without a second thought nor a plan, desperation running through his blood, adrenaline and panic -sheer, painful, panic pulsing through his nerves and making him just do something for good measure without considering his options.

There was only one option and it was saving Chöji, everything else dissolved before it could become a proper thought.

Something flew past him with faster speed and a swooshing sound and hit the thing -whatever it was, on the arm. "G- Get away from him," Ino panted from somewhere behind him.

"Help!" Chöji begged, terrified, his voice sore from screaming and screaming and screaming again, his hands full of blood because he tried to defend himself from the attack and he couldn't use anything but his kunais and hands. He was shaking and gritting his teeth while screaming. Shikamaru just reached him and desperately looked at him because where was he hurt? Where was he hurt?! Where?!

The monster took a step back and ripped off whatever Ino threw from its arm and charged against them again with its mouth still open, its body impossibly long and sharp and bony. Shikamaru's brain couldn't understand what it was. "The fatty boy can't get up," the thing howled, ripping parts of its skin in desperation for something to dismember, and Shikamaru shouldn't know the reason behind its movements but he did, the thing was still running towards them, so Shikamaru reacted-

" _Earth release: Pebble Barrage_!" He screamed and pointedly swung his arm towards the thing. Small stones and pebbles lifted quickly from the ground and flew towards it, but the monster didn't dodge them, the attack wasn't meant to be very damaging but Shikamaru didn't know many jutsus to work with other than his Shadow Release, which was out of the question since he couldn't stop the thing and help Chöji at the same time. The thing halted, briefly, but recovered fast enough for Shikamaru to hold his breath.

One, two, three kunais nailed on the thing's neck, skull, and arm respectively, and the monster cried in pain and turned.

"Over here! Here!" Ino screamed at it with trembling vocal cords and a pale face. She threw a new kunai again to get her point across and shunshined away with a log when the _thing_ charged against her.

"Quick! Chöji, we need to run, get up!" Shikamaru panted, trying to make his friend stand.

"I can't!" Chöji replied desperately, "my feet! There's something on my feet!"

"What? What?!" Shikamaru asked and quickly threw her hands to his friend's feet, looking for whatever was holding Chöji down, then touching, then looking again. "There's nothing here! There's nothing Chöj-"

"It's there, can't you see it?!" And Chöji was panicking, "It's right there!"

"The fatty boy can't get up," he heard again, his blood boiled with adrenaline.

"The stupid girl is not good enough," a new voice -so, so similar to the other one and yet so different, emerged from somewhere around them. "The stupid girl is not good enough," they heard again, and from the shadows a new, inhumanly tall, skinny, sharp thing emerged, ripping the skin from its skull.

"The stupid girl is not good enough"

"The fatty boy can't get up."

"The stupid girl is not good enough."

And Shikamaru saw Ino's legs wobbling at the exact same moment the monster was about to reach her.

Shikamaru grabbed Chöji's head with one of his hands and almost dug his nails into his scalp, terror was now moving every part of his being and he sank his teeth on his lower lip until he could taste his own blood. He was sweating, he was trembling, he was terrified. He begged, he prayed he was right and his brain hadn't betrayed him because otherwise Ino would die and then Chöji would die and he would just kill himself before sense could kick in because he was the reason they perished.

He channeled chakra to Chöji's head.

"The smart one is forgettable," a new voice said, and he yelled the KAI.

* * *

Much to his surprise, Kisame didn't seem as oblivious as what was happening around the world as he pretended to be. Truth be told, Itachi never doubted Kisame's intel, he just didn't know the exact full length of his resources, much more considering that he wasn't particularly using them for what he probably should. Part of him wanted to thank his partner for letting this side of him wander around his vanity and gossip needs because that would mean that he wasn't particularly seeking information that would undoubtedly help Pein's plan progression -even when he knew better than entertaining that hope-. But another part of him was eager to lay a punch on his scaly skin, since he seemed always eager to debrief Itachi of his latest discoveries, a grin from ear to ear and his head cocked to the side, much to his own dismay.

"I have GREAT news," Kisame's foot kicked the door open when entering the room Itachi claimed as his, Samehada nowhere to be seen. Itachi had tried to rest for a few hours after they broke into the house they were currently in on their way to Iwagakure, the owners taken down by a genjutsu that would let them unconscious enough hours for them to sleep and eat whatever they could find on their cupboards.

"Tch," Itachi didn't feel caritative enough as to give Kisame any other type of response to his eagerness, his hand covering his eyes as to not be disturbed by the light the other Akatsuki member let in from the corridor.

"Look alive, you will like this, I promise," Kisame's knee bumped against his leg as to grab his attention, but Itachi didn't move one bit to acknowledge him, he huffed as to let him know that, _not now, I'm really not in the mood_ , but Kisame's knee bumped against his leg once more.

"I will cut it off," he warned, his tone barely neutral, sinking his head deeper in the pillow.

"Someone had a rough night," Kisame replied, Itachi still didn't look at him. Rough night was a little bit of an understatement, he barely slept at all. His head was agonizingly throbbing and he was still haunted by the prospect of blindness, submitting to darkness this early on his plan was a twisted joke. He refused. He will not. Thinking about it prevented him from resting properly, hence, the headache.

"Come on 'Tachi, I swear is a really, _really_ good news, plus, we should be going soon, so you could -you know, get up." Kisame's voice took a darker tone, "unless of course, you want me to kill the folks downstairs, that would undoubtedly solve the 'leave before they wake' problem."

"Thought you didn't like killing civilians," he replied.

"Thought you didn't like killing if you didn't have to. _A waste of time and chakra_ , you called it, killing them would make your genjutsu go to waste, don't it?" Kisame replied back. He complied and promptly sat, the mattress sounding as old as it felt on his back, he could feel Kisame's presence at the foot of the bed, (im)patiently waiting for Itachi's acknowledgment of the subject he had brought up, Itachi almost feels compelled to give in to his impulses of punching him. "Really good news," Kisame whispered, standing closer to Itachi.

"What?" He spat through his teeth.

"Our team made it to the next round!" Kisame clapped, like Itachi was supposed to know what he was talking about.

"What?" He asked again, confusion relaxing his tone.

"Our te- oh, right, repeating won't help." Kisame sat next to him in a quick motion, "because context, right?"

"Kisame," Itachi massaged his temples with the palm of his hands.

"Alright, alright, you're having one of those days," Kisame recoiled, his hands up defensively. "Amegakure sent 21 teams to the Chünin exams Konoha's hosting." He smiled, "it's my pleasure to announce that five of them made it to the next round."

Now, that didn't satisfy Itachi's curiosity at all, he was more pissed than curious, granted, but he couldn't help but wonder, "did you train a group?" _When?_ would have been his next question since Kisame hadn't left his side -much to his endless annoyance, but his teammate answered him before he could voice his doubt.

"Nah, I just thought that since Kiri sent none and, well, you hate Konoha, we might as well cheer for Ame."

Itachi blinked at this, failing to see where the appeal of supporting a village they weren't part of or had no feelings for, was. "What?" And granted, he had asked that a lot since his partnership with the swordsman, but his capacity to surprise him was infinite.

Kisame smiled, "it was just a thought…" he dismissed, "a bird also told me that thirty-five teams from Konoha itself advanced to the next round as well, an impressive amount, one would think they made it easier for the locals."

_Ah, there it is, the backbone._ Itachi knew what Kisame's intentions were, it surprised him how slow he came to the realization, if he weren't so sleep deprived, he wouldn't have forgiven himself. "It's that so?"

"Oh, come on Itachi, you and me both know that no village is above those tactics."

"And let me guess, Sasuke's team is in one of them." He went straight to the point, straightening his back.

"Uh," Kisame shrugged, "I wouldn't know." He smiled, aware that Itachi could tell he was lying, "alright, I think we should get going." He jumped to his feet, his head almost crashing against the ceiling. "Uh, that was close, stupid _humans_ with their stupid _height_ -" he blabbed, walking away, and then he screamed.

Itachi cast a genjutsu that made him fall down the stairs.

* * *

There was silence and there was light, mist nowhere to be found, Shikamaru's right hand was pierced by the kunai in Ino's hand that was in reality aimed towards her own neck by her own, twisted and manipulated, volition. His chest tightly pressed against her back, his other hand on her forehead to help her release. He was panting, barely in control of his own body, trembling by the rests of adrenaline that kept pulsing through his muscles.

Ino twisted and fought against his hold, the kunai moving from right to left from her motions. He grunted in pain but didn't let go, he pressed her harder against him in an attempt to calm her down. "Ino stop!" He cried in pain, "it's over! It's over!" He tried to bring her frenetic mind to the present. She was a Yamanaka, she was in control of her mind and those of others, the single thought of being stripped of that control was probably crushing her. Shikamaru could practically see her trying to control the reigns of her body, to cleanse her mind from the invaders in such a frenetic way that her body practically convulsed against him. He could, perhaps, sympathize with her struggle,

If it weren't for the _fucking knife_ embedded in his hand.

"Ino- FUCK, CONTROL YOURSELF." He yelled at her, but she kept fighting him, she kept fighting something inside of her, and Shikamaru could do nothing but wait until her spasms quieted down long enough for him to gently set her down in the ground. She didn't look at him, she let him guide her to the floor and brought her hands to her head, crouching down. Shikamaru left her there and turned, his eyes meet his injured hand for the first time and he paused to look, minutes and minutes seemed to pass but he didn't turn his eyes away from the gash and the blood, the crimson color looked almost black on his skin. His hand looked paler, he felt it heavier with the weight of the kunai still inside him, he felt himself weakening. He laughed.

And laughed, and laughed.

_Hope we are not embarrassing you, Asuma-sensei_ , he thought bitterly, pulling the kunai out of him in one clumsy motion that shook his legs with the force of the pain, he reached for his backpack, tossing the kunai to the ground, and hastily bandaged his hand, tightening the fabric as much as he could. "We need to keep moving," he grunted when he saw Ino approaching, pale and disheveled. "We need to find water, our canteens won't be enough."

Ino didn't argue, she probably didn't have the force to do so, "what about the other team?" She asked and Shikamaru paused.

"No," he thought out loud, "this wasn't made by another team, it was too tricky, I still have the scroll on my backpack, it wasn't cast by another team."

Ino pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, sending a chill down his spine, it occurred to him that someone in the planning department was at serious risk of retaliation on her part, but Shikamaru couldn't force himself to care. He was tired, all of them were, and how long did they spent fighting their own minds? He looked around him, the kunais Ino threw while 'fighting' the monster were scattered across the floor, a part of the ground was lifted where he had made his Jutsu. They weren't even that far away from their door either.

_Shenanigans._ This place was specifically built for them -Shikamaru's injured hand trembled, and he stopped it with his other hand- which meant that probably every door had something specially made for those who crossed it. Team 7 and Team Gai probably encountered something that challenged their fighting abilities, since most of their members relied mostly on their sheer force of combat, team 8 probably their tracker competence or something of the sort. But they did leave an open for them to crack the code, they left information -or more accurately they left _out information_ (like the non-existent branch that was keeping Chöji from moving or how he knew exactly what the monster was doing and why he was doing it for) _,_ for them to investigate and realize how to solve the issue, how to win against their trap.

What a twisted, awful mind they had.

Which meant that either they had to investigate each team that was enrolled in the Chünin exams or every village had the same patron for task-division; a capture and interrogation team (information gathering, like them), a tracker team, and a frontline combat team.

(This wasn't important to know, this didn't matter, but his hand hurt so much he just needed something to think about besides how much in pain he was.)

Was this over? Was this just the twisted idea the planning division had of a welcome present or this would keep happening further down the route? Should they be concerned still about this kind of trap alongside the possibility of running with another team? What the hell were they supposed to do? Shikamaru stood. "We need to keep moving. We need to find water," he said again, he needed to be sure this was over, and _moving_ seemed the only way he could keep focus. He never thought the day will come when he would rather walk than lay down and do nothing, but here it was, a sunny, warm fucking day.

Chöji was still where Shikamaru had left him, looking at nothing, mumbling without moving an inch, his hands and forearms bleeding from where he had cut himself during the genjutsu attack. A bruise on his face that was probably caused by his own fist. Shikamaru walked towards him and quickly shut down the part of his brain that tried to think -too deep, too much- in what each monster meant for each of them, how they had designed them? How did they know what to say in order to bite their defenses and crept their way into their insecurities to make them hurt themselves instead of one another? ( _the smart one is forgettable)_

He slowly crouched next to his friend, trying to find the right words. "Chöji," he whispered his name as not to startle him, and Chöji looked at him in shock.

"I…" Chöji started, his lower lip trembling in a way that made Shikamaru's heart sink at the pit of his stomach, "I couldn't move, I…"

"I know," Shikamaru tried to reassure him but Chöji wasn't listening.

"It was so close," he blinked, tears fell down his cheeks with each blink, "it was so close and it kept- it kept hurting me -I -I- I left, I left you and-"

"It's not your fault, nothing is your fault." He wanted to shake Chöji to make him understand but he looked so lost, he looked so frightened.

Chöji blinked, "It was so close- It was so close- It hurt, I hurt me- I- It-"

Ino gently pushed Shikamaru out of the way and kneeled softly in the grass in front of Chöji, eye-leveled. He blinked and some tears fell but other than that did nothing _._ Ino for her part grabbed her backpack and took a pair of bandages, and slowly and deliberately used them to carefully bandage Chöji's arms up to his elbows. Chöji, still, did nothing. He was frozen in place like he was afraid to move, looking at Ino like she would hate him if he made any movement.

"You're okay," she whispered, finishing bandaging him. "We've got you."

Chöji nodded slowly, then he nodded again, then again and grabbed at Ino for dear life. He cried in silence on her shoulder and she allowed it, gently patting his back, her only attempt to comfort. They were gënin but they had never experienced being so close to dying up until now and Chöji alone couldn't get up but maybe with the help of both of them, he would be able.

Ino looked at Shikamaru and he whispered a _thank you_ in return.

* * *

Shikamaru was still on watch when she spoke, his shift would not end for a couple of hours, a couple of hours that she should use to rest. He demanded to be the first one on watch because he needed to be alone, he needed to do something besides worry. The cold was piercing through his skin forcing him to stay awake and also purred him to sleep, his injured hand burned despite the lack of warmth in his surroundings.

"Are you awake?" Ino asked him and he saw her looking at him, she and Chöji were forced to sleep together in search of warmth. Starting a fire was completely out of question since other teams will be able to see the smoke from various locations, so they were left only with the clothes they brought to the forest to use in order to get warm.

As it was, the three of them were more than underprepared. Ino still used her purple top and skirt, expecting the typical Konoha weather that was not able to drop more than one or two degrees in this time of the year, but if there was something that the first genjutsu had taught them, was that whoever planned this was a sadistic individual (or group, who knew), and of course the temperature somehow magically dropped in a way that made his teeth shiver. "Go to sleep," he replied simply, choosing to ignore the question completely because he was supposed to be on watch. O _f course,_ he was awake.

To his surprise Ino didn't immediately reply, he heard nothing after his command, and for a moment he entertained the idea that she had actually obeyed him. "Why didn't you stop the thing with your shadow?" It was a demand for an explanation of an action he performed under pressure, the nerve of this girl, Shikamaru was sure that if he could see her, he will be looking at a scowl on her face.

"What?" He replied with a question of his own, perplexed.

"Why didn't you stop the thing with your shadow?" She asked again, repeating word by word without indulging him in the context he was actually looking for or a deeper introspection on why would she ask something so idiotic. The only difference was that this time her tone was more unforgiven.

"It was a genjutsu." He replied tilting his head to the side and raising an eyebrow, forgetting for a moment that she could not see the motion, he charged his voice with a deeper sarcastic tone for future interactions.

"You know what I mean. You could have stopped it and I could have helped Chöji and-"

"It was a genjutsu, a thing that I saved you from -so, you're welcome there." He didn't hide the disdain in his voice, his injured hand throbbing with pain and burning, spasming occasionally. The injure she provoked still too fresh in his body and his mind, it didn't matter for him who planned the whole trap, she was the one carrying the weapon that ended up embedded in his hand.

"Genjutsu or not -you can't think under pressure." It was obvious by her voice that she was gritting her teeth, he could imagine her moving until she was sitting, her voice reached his ears almost warmingly.

"I figured the genjutsu before you opened your throat, so this thing you're doing?" He moved a finger between the two of them more for his sake than hers, since she couldn't see him doing it, "trying to take me down so you feel better about yourself and your lack of skills? It's not going to work."

She took in air, it was obvious by the sound and his knowledge of her mannerisms, something about being under a genjutsu had tightened a dangerous thing in within her, it was a stupid thing to be scared of -she was a ninja for Kamisama's sake, she should know better than to freak out for a basic mental attack, but then again, she had been particularly annoying since the beginning of the test, so maybe he was reading too much into it. "But if it hadn't been..."

"But IT was! Why should we entertain your stupid hypothetical scenario of me not functioning when we both know for a fact that you didn't?!"

"The scenario is half-hypothetical! You did a mistake!"

"I saved your life!"

"If you had controlled that thing with your shadow, maybe we could have moved before the genjut-"

"Oh please! Stop! Why are you pushing this?"

"Listen," she breathed again with a pause, as if collecting her thoughts, Shikamaru grabbed a handful of grass from the ground and tossed it to his other side, then cut one by one to distract himself from the pain and his discomfort. "You are sometimes so trapped into the complicated things, that you miss the simple ones."

"And by simple things you mean you, right?" He spat, tired, furious, wanting to go back to the solitude he desperately looked for when he asked to be the first one on watch and that Ino had taken from him with her presence and conversation.

It sounded as if she wanted to rip his head off, "I. am. not. a thing." She roared low enough not to weaken Chöji, despite both of them being almost screaming a moment ago, "you know? It's almost comical how your biggest feat is your brain, while mine is to learn how to turn it into a mush."

"Are you threatening me?" He asked her, rarely glancing at her shadow, it was night time and he was at a disadvantage to control her with his Jutsu, but she couldn't see him, so he could work with that in his favor.

"I..." she didn't sound shy, Shikamaru was sure that the only reason why she paused was because she was fully trying to understand the consequences of her attacking him, of a fight between them, what would it mean for their clans and alliance, to Konoha, to their parents. So many negative outcomes sure outweighed the pleasure of beating him senseless, but again, Ino Yamanaka was such an unpredictable creature. "I hate you so much."

And that was both unexpected and not surprising at all, the sentiment was mutual -or almost, Shikamaru couldn't fully hate her because little was the time he dedicated to think her, but the full admission was a strong move on her part, it should have made nothing on him, but it felt suddenly wrong, this was wrong, she was wrong and he... he was not. Couldn't be. "I'm not fighting alone," she added after a moment, noticing his silence -and when she spoke he noticed it too, he hadn't replied to her statement, he had kept silent, thinking of her and her hatred. "I'm not snapping at a wall because I'm mental. Don't run away from your responsibility."

He covered his face with his hands -his right still hurt, so much, but he didn't know what else to do, his eyes burned with each blink because he was fighting so hard to stay awake, "what do you want for me Ino? What do you want?" He whispered, defeated, suddenly so done with everything, hating so much Asuma, Shikaku, and everyone responsible for putting him in this position.

And then, "Chöji ran away from us," she said the five words that had haunted him all day -except that Chöji ran away from _him_ and he couldn't grasp the idea that his best friend had left him behind without looking back-, and will stick with him for the rest of his life, the weight that the knowledge settled within his chest was just too much to bear so he chose to focus on other issues. Ino forced him to face it, Ino forced him to take accountability. You had to be a fool not to notice the somber shadow that darkened Chöji's usually cheerful face right after both Ino and he screamed at each other before entering the forest, no one was as oblivious as to not put two and two together and track Chöji's reckless behavior at both his teammates. At him.

"We can't keep doing this," he breathed out, exhausted.

"I know." She replied.

"I can't lose Chöji," he admitted because he was really tired and Ino was listening and the cold did a number on his brain and numbed the part that always thought that she's not worth it. "I can't. Not him. Not because of me."

"I know," her voice reached him again. "I know," she repeated for good measure.

He swallowed again, bringing his arms around himself in search of warmth. "Go to sleep Ino, I'll wake you up when it's your shift."

"Alright," she whispered again. Shikamaru looked up at the sky.

There were no stars.


	13. Wings of a Butterfly

** Wings of a Butterfly **

* * *

_Chünin exams. Stage two. Forest of death. Day two._

It was time for her to quickly learn and dominate in the blink of an eye her sensory skills as Shikamaru _gently_ urged her to do, his morning breath reaching her nostrils and making her narrow her eyes. Chöji had woken them up not much before the sunrise and now she was concentrating on her environment while her stomach grumbled with hunger.

_We need to move_ , Shikamaru reminded them while giving her a granola bar that she was quick to consume, they needed to find water or an earth scroll, whatever came first, but it would be easier for them if she could sense the teams around them so they could use the surprise effect to plan an attack. But Ino wasn't hopeful enough to believe they would actually follow that through and prepare themselves for battle, after all, running has always been their specialty, their most trained feature.

"I'm trying," she furrowed her eyebrows and tried again, sensing chakra paths was a natural occurrence within her clan, the reason as to why kids outside it never let her play hide and seek with them -well, except Sakura, but she was a civilian so she didn't exactly know of Ino's capacity-. But Ino had never tried to reach for chakra signatures that were further away than a couple of meters. Her ability should allow her to pick signatures around a couple of kilometers when well developed, according to her father, but she wasn't there yet, she wasn't even close to a couple of meters. It didn't matter how sensitive she was to chakra signatures if she couldn't use that at their advantage.

"Ino," Shikamaru was done waiting, apparently.

"Sh, don't talk. You're making me lose focus."

Internally, she reached out for more of her chakra, Asuma had taught them they could control it enough for them to walk on water, so she should be able to use it to enhance her sensitivity to chakra signatures. "Okay, uhm…" Ino said, "I can't go very far," -and it totally depends on how much chakra the shinobi has for me to sense it, she should have added, but didn't, "but I think we can move now." Shikamaru nodded at her words and cracked his neck. Being the sensor, she was forced to go ahead of them ( _what? No!_ ) to alert them if someone -a team, more accurately- was close by.

They spent the rest of their first day trying to recover from the genjutsu-attack while covering as much ground as they could, it hadn't been enough despite the effort each of them put on the task, and they soon succumbed to their fatigue. Today they had to make up for that awful first impression, which meant the more they walked, the better. Shikamaru had figured that their best shot at grabbing the scroll they needed was by reaching the tower's perimeters as soon as they could and intercept any team that arrived after them.

"It's more likely they will have both, and we prevent a possible attack from another team that might assault us in the forest to steal our scroll and the one we might have gathered by then." He had said. Which, alright, it was a fair point, but what if there was another team with the same strategy? They shouldn't brush off the possibility of an encounter with a team that had the same idea as them. Shikamaru hadn't had a response, but they didn't have another plan either, so they had to work with that. Winning was about strategy they thought, but found themselves learning that it had to do with luck as well. And luck they couldn't control. So, Ino thought, _good luck counting with that variable on your next scheme, Shikamaru._

A chill rose in her hair arms and Ino stopped, holding a hand up to make her teammates froze in their place. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her own chakra, since it made her more aware of the external variables that might have disturbed it in the first place. The response was what she expected: chakra signatures.

She looked back and glanced at Chöji, nodding once. Since he was the one with the raw power, he was the one in charge of disposing the enemy if a combat arose, Ino would serve as his backup -since she had more knowledge of ninjutsu and had better scores that Shikamaru on taijutsu-, and Shikamaru would try to incapacitate them. He will work from his comfort zone, the shadows. At her signal, Chöji jumped from their hideout, bush scraping his clothes, Ino swallowed, ready to jump at his command, but otherwise remained hidden.

"The fuck?!" A boy yelled at Chöji's entrance.

"Uh…"

"Who the hell are you?" Another one asked, his question followed by the sound of metal -a Kunai perhaps-.

Ino smirked, first rule they taught in the Academy, _subdue the enemy_ , before anything, before questions, subdue the enemy, which was why the Nara clan technique was so important between the ranks of Konoha and why most combat cells had one member of the clan (and also why the Hokage _softly_ encouraged Nara women to have more than one kid). But the rule was universal, for if you didn't restrain them first, then you were giving them an opening to attack. And whoever attacked first often had the upper-hand.

She slowly relaxed and tried to focus more on the chakra signatures, none of them knew she was there apparently, so she supposed they weren't a tracking specialized team and none of them was a sensor. On the other side of the bush, Chöji pretended to be alone and lost, looking for his teammates while a member of the other team moved towards him. "Don't fucking move or I'll cut you open!" One roared, "turn around! Turn around I'll tell you!"

"Where are his teammates?"

Ino swallowed a lump and felt her arms shake with the force of her adrenaline, despite the hair of the back of her neck standing warningly at the immediate danger, Ino smiled. This team seemed worse than them since they committed the rookie mistake of not noticing a trap when there was a clear one in front of them. Maybe she could take them, maybe they didn't need much preparation or strategy as she first thought. And if they could rely on sheer power and not brains, then wouldn't that mean that Shikamaru was unnecessary?

"On your knees! NOW!" Someone screamed, and Ino's hands, by their own volition, stretched. "Look out!"

She stretched her arms through the bush, her skin complained at the pointed branches, and grabbed the boy by the ankles, throwing him to the ground and dragging him in her direction while shouting Chöji's name. The Akimichi, noticing what she did, was quick to respond, he turned from his position and tried to knock him out while Ino held him. Through the leaves, Ino watched as the boy raised his forearm towards his face to protect himself, but Chöji had too much strength for him to block the blow completely and he ended up receiving the weight of Chöji's fist and his own arm. However, two kunai were thrown in their direction and both Chöji and Ino had to jump back to avoid them.

With her location discovered -not that she wasn't expecting it to stay secretive for much longer-, she took a kunai with each hand while landing on the floor, Chöji next to her. "Give us your scroll," she demanded, "and no one will get hurt."

"You already hurt one of us!" Another of the group told her, ( _well she was still learning the speech part_ ) his weapons on hand. The boy they first attacked kneeled and tried to stand while holding his bloody nose, so her plan to knocking him off hadn't worked, _which was great_ , but at least Chöji's punch had clearly made a number on the boy's head since he couldn't stand and kept falling to his knees every time he tried to.

With her attention back to the rest of the group, she saw the one that spoke running towards her while the other (the bigger one of the three) went for Chöji. On her peripheral vision, she saw Chöji moving quickly towards his opponent with his attack already prepared, which she considered to be a smart move. Akimichi's power came from their massive strength and not from their evasive skills, if Chöji wanted to win, he would have to overpower his opponent.

Returning to focus on her main problem, the boy that decided she was his target threw a shuriken in her direction, she managed to dodge it when moving to the right but the boy was expecting her to do so. He threw a punch that was probably aimed for her jaw but she docked her head just in time and the hit landed on the side of her skull. She felt the pain resounding on her brain, but the fingers of her opponent weren't prepared to knock on something as hard as her head. It was just a second, but a second long enough for her head to stop spinning, she swung a kick aimed at the boy's knees to make him lose balance. He jumped to avoid the attack but she quickly threw the kunai on her right hand, forcing him to use his own weapon to block instead of tossing it towards her as he looked ready to do.

While the boy she was fighting lost one second detouring her kunai she whispered, "Bunshin no Jutsu," and performed as quickly as she could the seals to create a perfect reflection of herself. Her intention was to use it to distract the boy long enough for her to sneak behind him and subdue him. Her time was slim and the clone won't be able to damage him because it wasn't solid and was easy to see through if he was smart enough, but little more she could do.

Unfortunately, the bloody-nose one had recovered enough from their previous attack and decided she was easier to take down than her bigger teammate who's punch was strong enough to let his brain wobbling, and that the best strategy was to incapacitate her while their teammate struggled with Chöji. "Keep him busy, this is gonna be quick!" She heard before pain and pressure ran through her back and she was sent flying in the opposite direction, the visual-clone dispersing from the attack. She spun in the air and landed on her feet but the force of the kick was enough to drag her back a little more, forcing her to use her free hand to keep balance. Her fingers dug in the dirt to stop her recoil and a nail broke. She hissed.

When she looked up she just had time to lift up the hand that was previously on the ground to block part of the attack of the bloody-nose boy, she was able to protect her face with her forearm but he kicked her side. She bit the pain of her ribs at the collision. Despite the burn and the consequential tears it brought to her eyes, she saw from the corner of her eye the kunai flying towards her direction and quickly threw herself to the ground, rolling away and jumping to her feet.

"Fuck, Kori! You almost kill ME!"

Taking advantage of their small distraction and blinking rapidly as to clear her vision, Ino quickly tossed Kori -that was his name, right?- the remaining kunai she still held and replaced it with another (the last one, _fuck_ ) from her pouch while running towards him. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins and made her forget the pain in her ribs which, for the moment, was an advantage. He looked at her just in time to see the weapon and stumbled awkwardly to his right on his surprise, attempting to avoid losing an eye. Keeping nothing but her kunai, Ino tossed her remaining shuriken to him in order to keep him distracted. It ended up being too high to actually hurt him. He smirked. She smiled. His smirk vanished.

"Kawarimi no Jutsu!"

Ino popped from above Kori while the shuriken she replaced herself with fell on the grass where she used to be. Her head was spinning from the technique but her distraction was short-lived. Not wasting more time and hearing the boy gasp as recognition came down upon him, she wrapped her legs around his neck and swung around. She put both hands on his jaw and dropped her full weight back. The resulting blow against the ground sent a chill down her spine but further affected her opponent, as she hoped to do, whose air flew away forcefully from his lungs, consequence of her motion, and couldn't return given her grip.

"Kori!"

The other boy seemed to panic at seeing his partner in such a dangerous position and looked ready to end her. She was completely at a disadvantage because in order to dodge the incoming attack she would have to set Kori free and thus still fight both boys who clearly will retaliate in a much more offensive manner than previously. Kori, however, was not unconscious, was very much awake and seemed to like being so as Ino found out when he used his right hand to punch her in her previously hurt ribs, while his left reached for a kunai on his pouch -how many did _they_ have?-. She just had enough time to use her elbows to stop the knife from digging into her cheek and only injure her, and to slow the punches on the other side. Luckily, she still held her own kunai on her left hand and dug the tip slightly on her captive's throat, hissing a warning, Kori's attempt at being free subdued instantly. She scolded herself for not using the tactic sooner, but she supposed it was the consequence of her concussion from before, or so she excused herself.

At the same time both Ino and Kori were fighting for control on the ground, the bloody-nose-boy ran towards the tangled pair, probably noticing her disadvantage and not deeming her worthy enough of a ninjutsu that would clearly waste precious chakra. His tactic seemed clear enough from Ino's sideways glance and Kori's noise of approval, he intended to remove her completely from the equation, wire-ends on each hand. Ino's only options were to either throw the kunai that held Kori dominated against Bloody-nose and lose her leverage, which Kori will use to put himself over her and perhaps choke her to death, or -again- let go of Kori and try to keep fighting two people at the same time. The odds were not in her favor.

"SHIK-!" She screamed.

The ground rumbled and Bloody-nose stumbled forward, falling on his face when the ground broke. In a motion quick as an exhalation Ino glanced at the origin of the attack. Chöji's giant fist emerged from the floor in a cloud of dust and fragments of earth. As compensation for saving her, the third -huge, teammate of the other team punched Chöji on the jaw and made him spit blood. Ino saw Chöji bit through the pain and turn quickly towards his opponent, grabbing the offending limb and blocking the second one intended to lay another attack, this time on the Akimichi stomach. He spun the shinobi in the air grabbing him from his wrists and he tossed him forcefully at a tree behind Ino that broke.

"Kagemane no Jutsu, complete." Came the voice of none-other than Shikamaru. "You can let go, Ino."

Ino glanced around before complying and gently disentangled from Kori, she rolled and got to her knees, her side was burning from the pain and she collapsed forward, her forehead resting on the ground. "Whe- where were you?" She hissed, looking at the floor under her, drops of sweat falling to the grass.

"Trying to grab all three of them." He responded.

"What?" She spoke through bared teeth, "you mean you saw what we were going through and you didn't help us?" She glanced up and looked for her teammate, he walked away from the shadows that covered him, his hands on the usual seal of the Kagemane.

"I saw what _you_ did, attacking without thinking of a strategy first. Chöji was fighting in direct sunlight, I couldn't have helped him if I just grabbed two out of the three."

"But you could have helped me," she deadpanned, "and if it weren't for Chöji breaking the floor-"

"-If Chöji hadn't broken the floor I would have helped you, Ino," he said with such a soft, almost hurt, tone of voice that Ino's anger -frustration, pain- recoiled, "I wasn't going to reveal my hideout if it wasn't a life or death situation, little would have helped us. Now tie them up, I don't have enough chakra to hold all three of them for much longer."

Chöji was the first one to move, spitting more blood from his wounded mouth, Ino tried to stand but the burn from her side came back full force, it was difficult not to let her pain turn to ire but she forced her insults and wishes to plummet the other team faces to the ground to the pit of her stomach. She fought through the agony and stood, grabbing her side. The now more-bloody-than-ever-nose guy had a wire and she thought that if he was kind enough to think of using it to choke her, then she will kindly pay in exchange by tying his wrists with it. It was a dark thought that was quickly forced to remain a whish when Chöji gave her a rope for her to use, a look on his face in between apologetical and wary.

No, she thought, maybe it was better to keep the wire to use it on some other occasion. It didn't look like a very comfortable weapon, but since she didn't know what was going to keep coming to them, it was a better plan to have something that could be used both to restrain as to hurt. Once Shikamaru forced the members of the opponent team to sit and both Chöji and her tied them tightly and stripped them from their weapons, Shikamaru dropped the Jutsu and took a mouthful of air.

"That was a lot of chakra on you three," he sort of admonished them, which made Ino kind of smirk, but she forced her mouth down. "Chöji-"

"-on it!" Was the Akimichi response who was quickly roaming through the ninja -Kusagakure ninja, how interesting- backpacks. "Uhm, Shika…"

"What is it Chöji?"

"Can you remind me what kind of scroll we have?" He asked, his face twisting at something inside one of the backpacks.

"Heaven, why?"

"Like, like this one?" He said, face both purple from the punch he took to his jaw and red from embarrassment or anger, maybe both.

"No." For a moment Ino thought it was Shikamaru's response to Chöji's question, but Shikamaru's disappointment was quick to bury her hopes, "you have to be kidding me." He pinched his nose, "look in the rest of their equipment, maybe they have the other one too."

Chöji did look for the other scroll in every place possible, they even took care of palpating their hostages just in case they were hiding it on their clothes but the result was just the same, they didn't have an earth scroll, which seemed to be a funny resolution for the boys from Kusa who were laughing at their expense despite being on the losing side of their encounter.

"We can't stay here," Shikamaru quickly said, dismissing the playful looks of their opponents, "they soon will free themselves of the ropes or perform a ninjutsu and we can't fight them again-" Ino was quick to understand Shikamaru's undertone, he seemed particularly eager to put distance between them and the group they subdued. Ino raised an eyebrow, despite being close to biting the dust, she had been able to hold her ground against two gënin -regardless of whether this gënin seemed as bad as they came-, but she could consider Shikamaru's point. If he was almost without chakra -a pool that he will have to work on-, and with her sore ribs, they will have to rely on Chöji, and he didn't seem able to fight three people all on his own. "-We were close enough to lose as it is, we'll try to reach the tower and find an earth scroll." Shikamaru finished.

And still, in the farthest part of her brain, Ino scoffed at both of her teammates and at herself. They had been lucky for the Kusa team to be even worse than them, they had been lucky, they hadn't been good enough to take them down. A better-aimed punch, a kunai instead of a fist, a faster reaction of any of them and she would have been over. Ino was sure that if Sasuke were to fight them he would have disposed of the three of them as quickly as a thunder, fast enough to make them hit the ground before them knowing what had happened. And even further down, in the darkest parts of herself, she even doubted Sakura would have had a problem fighting against them, something about being with Sasuke should have rubbed in her by now. Ino was on her own.

"You better run! We will _hunt you down!_ " Kori threatened.

"Let's go," Shikamaru said.

Bitter taste went up her throat with viscous density, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to swallow the retort aimed for Shikamaru and the leading role he seemed eager to fulfill despite his proclamations, their discussion of yesterday a wound too new to lay forgotten yet. It took every ounce of her willpower not to snap at him, she was a wild creature by nature, so she turned, breeze caressing her exposed neck, shivering at the cold air and dampness of her skin, and walked towards the boys still yelling at them. "Start walking, I'll go in just a sec."

"Ino-"

It was a testament of her self-control that she merely turned her head towards his voice, her eyes wide with ferocity, her lips in a dangerously thin line. "Please," she scraped out of her vocal cords, her temperament a bomb to defuse. It must have contained at least a small amount of threat because Shikamaru recoiled, taking a step back, and the three gënin in the ground shattered the air with their sudden silence. The Nara's face transformed in front of Ino's eyes to his usual bored expression, parts of his being put into place deliberately slow, a spectacle almost too intimate for her to bear. When he took another step back and turned away from her, she allowed herself to smile faintly, cocking her head to the side at his retreating form. Ino was thankful at him for not voicing the question that was clearly forming in his tongue.

Chöji stood frozen for a moment, giving his full attention to her, his breaths were sharp and sonorous, something in his chest had to hurt. He opened his mouth and winced, his jaw sore from the attack. For a moment, a short one, Ino glanced back at the teammate she knew better than to despise, her eyes softening. Chöji looked like he wanted to reassure her and be reassured at the same time, Ino pitied that softness. "I'll be there in just a minute." She told him, her mouth dry and desperate for water, she licked her front teeth. Chöji nodded, and with a final look, jogged towards Shikamaru, catching up and walking by his side.

Once both her teammates were far enough for her not to see them but close enough to faintly feel them, she grabbed the Heaven Scroll from the Kusa team. "What the hell are you doing?" The bigger member of the team -the one that fought Chöji, the one that hurt Chöji, spoke and she shushed him with a look. This didn't feel bad, Ino wondered if it was in her nature to be cruel, but she refused to believe this was anything but fairness. This was a necessity and will ensure both their safety and retribution.

And retribution she will have indeed.

"We can't have you chasing us, can't we?" She purred, caressing her sore side with her open palm, their scroll was heavy on her hand. She tossed it on the ground and kneeled, the Kusagakure team watched her move wide-eyed, she took the wire she had recently stolen from one of them and smiled softly. Ino could feel the fury coming from the previous owner of the device like waves against her skin, what a funny prospect to be taken down by his own weapon, she mused.

Ino tied one of the ends of the wire on one of the tips of the scroll, loosely enough to be able to untangle it, and left the paper there before standing. She glanced down to the boys watching her, it was clear from her position that they will soon break loose. When she walked away, the other part of the wire tightly secured in Ino's hand, she was lucky enough to pull at the same time she heard one of them scream a victory yell -they had broken free, it seemed. When she pulled, there was a scream and then silence. She didn't know what her actions provoked, maybe death, maybe a mere chastise. Whatever the resolution, it was over. The Kusa team went away with their scroll open and whatever consequence it brought.

She tied the wire around her arm, looking back at the place she had been not seconds ago, she could only see the trees now, nothing more, nothing else. There was no smile on her face.

* * *

If it was noon by the time they dispatched Kusa's team then, by his calculations, running into Neji has been around two in the afternoon. Ino had not told them what she did when she stood behind, she approached them warily, her expression impassive, as if nothing of importance was to be said. Shikamaru didn't question her, but from a logical standpoint, he knew the Kusa team won't be pursuing them anytime soon. Ino looked at him once, right in his eyes, and kept walking, taking her position at the front of the team.

When they found Neji, Shikamaru couldn't say he was particularly proud of how things played out. It was a pathetic encounter really, for a moment Ino seemed to be distracted enough not to notice him, or maybe it was because Neji has not a big chakra pool for her to pick up and he was completely alone, no other chakra signature for her to notice, or -and this was the most logical and possible explanation-, Ino just wasn't that good of a sensor; which given that she hadn't particularly practiced the skill, wasn't that big of an insult. Thus, it was almost too late when she finally picked up on his energy and shoved both him and Chöji behind a bush, wincing and grabbing her sore side. They were in the middle of planning how to go around the Hyuga when he told them to show themselves but ultimately let them go with their own scroll and a wounded pride.

"We should have fought him," she said eventually, the tone of her voice tinted with wounded pride and a weird sense of determination that will more likely become a problem sooner than later, and even Chöji looked at her with his eyebrows raised in disbelief. "What? We're not weak!"

"You want to go back and fight Neji Hyuga then?" He asked her. They didn't know many ninjutsu yet and their taijutsu was clearly more than underdeveloped in comparison to the Hyüga prodigy, a person that was well known in Konoha, particularly for those who were willing to listen to a both proud and mad in equal parts Hizashi Hyuga. Shikamaru knew of his existence because his dad had told him, and his dad knew about him because Inoichi spoke of the promising boy one night while drinking, so if Inoichi knew, then Ino knew. And frankly, Shikamaru couldn't believe Ino was willing to fight Neji Hyuga to make a point that didn't even exist. They weren't weak, they were less than that.

"Whatever," she dismissed, still walking away from Neji, glancing back at the place he still stood with his back turned, not giving them much attention, "we'll just have to find some wimps," she breathed out, it might have been a joke, but she didn't laugh, her resolution shining through her eyes. Shikamaru immediately thought that they were as wimp as they came but then he remembered Ino and Chöji fighting the Kusa team and kept his mouth shut.

If it was approximately two in the afternoon by the time they encountered -and ran away from- Neji Hyuga, then it must have been around four o'clock when they heard Sakura's scream. Ino was standing pretty much ahead of him when she heard it, they were far away enough for her not to feel anything yet, but the shout gave away her position and as an automatic response Ino's muscles tensed and she sprinted towards the sound without thinking ahead. It was him the one who reacted almost immediately and went after her, hissing her name through his teeth.

They came to an abrupt stop behind another bush -god bless Konoha's flora-, Ino looked pale and she was biting her lip frenetically, watching Sakura trying to dispose of the assault all by herself, Naruto and Sasuke nowhere to be found. Lee, the guy with a green spandex that Ino had disgusted over out loud during the first exam, was unconscious on the ground. Ino's fingers were clutching her purple skirt and she looked ready to jump out and eat the sound-team but then recoiled. Shikamaru looked down at the floor and saw the dead grass he stood on, it was almost sad to watch the dark green of a lifeless plant, and when he looked up, Ino performed the same inner-debate of going but recoiling twice. He shook his head and thought that this wasn't his battle, nor team 10, but still, "Ino… what do you want to do?"

"What?" She looked at him, "why would I do something?" There was a glint in her eyes that looked suspiciously like water gathered in the corner of her eyes, but no tear followed, Ino's ponytail seemed particularly tense on her scalp and Shikamaru wondered if she ever let her hair loose. Ino furrowed her eyebrows at him, as if his question was a personal inquiry he wasn't allowed, and bit her upper lip harder, it bleed the tiniest drop of blood, and she quickly took care of it with the tip of her tongue.

For a fleeting moment, he watched her move in silence, tasting the words he wanted to say in his mouth, _because you want to_ , seemed as something both correct and inappropriate, so "didn't she used to be your friend?" was everything he voiced at her question, the following _before she broke your heart,_ came undone before he could properly form it with his lips. Ino opened her eyes and swallowed, looking back at the place Sakura was being held on by the sound-kunoichi, he could see Ino's hands shaking, her fingers taking leaf by leaf of the bush and letting it fall to the ground, dead. He almost reach to her to stop her criminal motions. Then, a kunai held by non-other than Sakura herself moved quickly, and pink locks came crashing down, there was laughter and tears and bites of all the things, but Sakura held on to her feral wish to protect, and something in Ino must have snapped, must have been a reminiscence of their time together, because her face twitched and she jumped forward.

He had no choice but to follow.

When she stood in front of who used to be her best friend and learned to be her torment, Ino smirked in a way Shikamaru hasn't seen in months. "Like hell I'll let you be the only one looking good in front of Sasuke-kun," she said, full of a confidence whose appearance only highlighted its absence. Shikamaru watched Ino from the corner of his eye, his body tensed with fear, fingers trembling. The sound-ninja all laughed, looking seemingly relaxed despite their presence, they were strong. Stronger than them no doubt, and the only way they could help Sakura was to rely on their numbers, but all three of them were in perfect conditions, while team 10 looked as good as it was in reality, completely wrecked.

"Stay away from her," Chöji warned, voice breaking and revealing his fear, the sound-ninja laughed even harder, whipping a tear from his eye with a smile on his face, Shikamaru scowled.

"Stay on your _fucking_ line, this is none of your business." The girl warned with a twist on her lips, her hand caressing her arm as if to soothe, which was particularly odd for a person that seemed eager to rip their throats.

"No." Ino's response came out as a whisper despite her earlier bravado, there was no doubt in her voice, but it seemed as if the odds she believed they had before were now slimmer, maybe she already knew they didn't stand a chance, but now that the sound team wasn't backing down, there was no way to walk away. There was a pause then, the moment where both teams looked at each other before attacking, and Shikamaru knew this moment will be the worst part of a battle, the expectation of what was to come, who will attack first, and how. Ino took a breath, breaking the silence, and when one of the sound team seemed to tense as to move, the pause was gone.

"Chöji!" Ino screamed, and Chöji -his best friend, the boy who constantly berated himself for being too coward, the one for which Shikamaru will _burn the forest to the ground_ \- jumped to action, clearly acting on impulse, he was the only one who could move and cause damage, Ino being injured from the fight prior and him being nowhere near a good fighter.

"Baika no Jutsu!" The Akimichi screamed, roared, and his size grew double, triple, his friend's eyes scanned the field until he spotted his target, "Nikudan Sensha!" His massive form twirled as quick as Shikamaru could see, moving towards the Sound-nin with the weird artifacts on his arms, said man blasted air no, not air, sound, (which traveled through air, so- _no,_ this wasn't the time to overthink that kind about stuff) of his arms and pushed - _kept_ , Chöji away enough from him not to be smashed to the ground. The Sound-nin struggled, yelled, and Chöji jumped to the air, the bandaged sound-nin saw his friend's action and ran towards his teammate -probably to save him from Chöji's attack, but Shikamaru wouldn't let him.

It was hard for a Nara, particularly for him who hasn't learned to control his jutsu to perfection and was almost without chakra, to grab a moving opponent, his own shadow was hard to bend, but what was more difficult was to grab the moving shadow of his opponent. Nara, when able, always tried to rely on the surprise effect, they tried not to be seen until they had grabbed a hold of their opponent's body. But the sound nin was making a pretty rookie mistake when fighting a Nara -but again, he might not know they even existed-, he ran _straight_ to his objective, Shikamaru was more than capable of knowing exactly where he was going to take his next step.

The precious look on the sound-nin when he noticed he couldn't move was priceless, he would have dwelled on it a little longer if it wasn't because Chöji's attack was still unsuccessful, the artifact-arms-guy jumped away at the last second. Ino, defying the very premise of her family Jutsu (Ino, always goddamn Ino), used her mind-transfer on the girl who hadn't been quick enough to move without his assistance. "This is how far you go," she said while inside the Sound kunoichi, pointing the kunai to the girl's neck. It was a bluff, both Shikamaru and Chöji knew and he tensed because, no, she wouldn't dare, but her plan was good. If they ever wanted to keep their teammate safe, or even if they only wanted to advance to the next round, since only a complete team could move to the third stage, they were forced to retreat.

But he didn't count the other important variables.

The one with the weaponized arms blasted more sound, but his arms were not pointing at Chöji, as he expected them to be, but to his own teammate. Shikamaru walked back -the one he still controlled was forced to do the same, perplexed by the sudden change in scenario, it was just a second ago that they had the upper hand, but now... was this something he will have to get used to? As it seemed, this exam was the first time they were actually experiencing what being a ninja actually was, what being in battle actually was. And, if they survived, this wasn't the worst thing they will have to encounter in their lifetime. "We don't care. The only thing we care about it's to get Sasuke for our master." He spoke, a smirk on his lips.

Shikamaru's mind started to work on a possible hypothesis, who was this team? Who was their master? What did they want with Sasuke specifically? It was something to do with him being an Uchiha, hence, it was about the Sharingan. He glanced at Ino, looking for any expression she might have produced at hearing Sasuke's name from the boy's lips, but she still was inside the kunoichi's mind, so her body was laying on the floor, blood coming out of her mouth. The attack must have hurt something inside the Sound-ninja and consequently, inside Ino.

"And besides," the bandaged sound-nin purred, "for what I can see from the blood on the girl's mouth, everything we do to Kin will also affect her," he said, pointing at Ino. He heard the way Sakura's voice cracked and called for his teammate to wake up, by the sound of the grass, she was trying to move towards the Yamanaka's limp body that was at his feet. Paying Sakura no mind, he needed to think of a plan, something for them to do. At this rate, strategies were the only thing that could help them, both Chöji and Ino's Jutsu were useless in this situation, and he was about to plummet to the ground in exhaustion.

The whole improvised plan had been to make them retreat while Ino controlled Kin's body. But that hadn't worked, Chöji's family Jutsu was over, his own shadow technique was on the verge of breaking, and Ino… he glanced at Kin. Kin -Ino- glanced at him, her eyes wide. He had to think, he had to come up with something. Both shinobi from sound laughed, they felt safe, winners already, they also liked to talk, to mock their opponents. Fine, they could talk, Shikamaru could work around that. He looked at Chöji. Then at Kin again and back to Chöji, his eyes narrowed. His best friend smiled. Kin nodded.

"So your power is to air-blast your opponent, right?" He said, squeezing Ino's arm and the response he got was so subtle that he almost misses it. He almost did. Her arm, slightly, softly tensed back. And of course, why would Ino stay on a body she couldn't use to their advantage? Kin was once more in control of her body, but her mind won't come back immediately once Ino left, it depended so much on the hostage's will power that Shikamaru couldn't know exactly how much of a window they had, but since Kin hadn't regained control over herself even after her teammate attacked her then that must mean she was overpowered by Ino's willpower.

He was smart. He had a plan. He was a Nara.

Five seconds before Kin woke up.

_One_

The sound of a branch distracted the boy with the weird arms, Shikamaru clapped a hand on his mouth and the bandaged boy, who was still linked to his shadow, did the same. Ino jumped to her feet. Chöji moved.

_Two_

The armored-arms-boy saw Ino moving towards him. Chöji almost reached Kin.

_Three_

The armored-arms-boy pointed his arms to Ino. Chöji enlarged his fist and Kin opened her eyes. His control over the boy trembled, he was breaking, he felt the weight of exhaustion pushing him down to his knees. He felt the breeze hit his face.

_Four_

Ino went around her target while trapping his arms together with a wire Shikamaru didn't know she had. Chöji punched and Kin screamed.

_Five_

It was too late by the time the armored-arm-boy noticed Ino's intention when deviating his hands when she pulled her wire.

"Dosu!" The boy yelled, and the bandaged one -Dosu- widened his eyes. A short but powerful blast of air, courtesy of their own teammate, sent Dosu flying away with enough force to break a couple of trees, breaking Shikamaru's control over him. He was forced to his knees, a rock on the grass pierced through his skin. Regardless of something working in their favor, the fight wasn't over. Kin had been slowed by Chöji's punch but she still wasn't knocked out (she had great endurance, apparently) and Dosu was temporarily absent because of the blast but he will come back soon enough. The last one of the Sound-nin was currently trapped on Ino's wire, but he wasn't going to let them have it just because their tactic miraculously worked. He grabbed the wire Ino used to trap his hands, _yanked_ at it, and sent Ino flying towards him, punching her in the face and sending her backwards again.

"Little bitch!" He was about to yank the wire again to punch her some more when

"Sakura… who did that to you?"

Sasuke woke up.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: There's little explanation in the manga about how the sensing ability works. It seems to be a type of skill that can't be used by everyone or appears to be able to be learned if someone doesn't have the affinity for it. Ino seems to be the only one of the rookie nine to be able to sense chakra signatures. Furthermore, not many shinobi are shown to have this specific ability. For instance, Tobirama and Minato are shown to sense chakra signatures (Namikaze was able to sense Naruto and the Kyuubi's chakra when resurrected), but it is unknown how good both of them were as sensors since Kurama and Naruto had enormous amounts of chakra that makes them easier to be sensed. Karin and -to a lesser extent- Fü Yamanaka are presented as the best sensor characters in the manga (Ino's feat in the War Arc was brilliant, but she can't be compared to Karin's technique and Fü was recruited by Danzo because of his capacity), and both are able to notice when there's a sensor in a group. Knowing this, I always thought that the technique likely works by producing a faint net of the user's chakra to find others' chakra signatures.
> 
> Naruto canonically needs to enter the Sage mode in order to feel those around him, so he's not a sensor naturally, hence why I separated Ino from the entirety of rookie nine. Shino relies on his kikaichus to feel his enemy's chakra, and Kiba on his enhanced olfactory sense, the Hyuga clan uses the Byakugan to spot the enemy, and the Sharingan allows the user to see colored chakra. I have seen part of the fandom catalog Team 8 as a sensor specialized team, but none of them are actually sensors in the strict term of the word, in that sense -pun intended-, I believe they're more accurately trackers than sensors.
> 
> As you noticed, I did modify the fight of Team 10 against the Sound nin without actually modifying the canon material. That moment is not particularly important to Team 10's story, but to Sasuke's, and I don't want to change it. I used this chapter as an experiment to see how comfortable I am writing fights, and as it turned out, I'm not particularly comfortable nor proud of the results. It still suits me fine since the main plot doesn't revolve around fighting and is not the main reason you read the story, but I will leave this chapter untouched as a reminder that this is not my forte.
> 
> Regards.


	14. The ring on a branch

** The ring on a branch **

* * *

Sakura's once upon a long, soft hair felt rough in between Ino's fingers, strands of pink hair that didn't seem to want to stay straight enough for her to comb in a way that would free Sakura's vision while helping her look put together enough. She brushed how she could the end of her disheveled locks, sacrificed in the heat of battle, unraveling it with the tip of her fingers and yanking unpurposefully her rival's head. "Ow! Careful Ino-pig!" Sakura complained.

"Be grateful I'm nice enough not to let you walk around with your hair looking like this," and Ino yanked softly her hair once more for good measure. "Besides, call it payback for hugging Sasuke like that. The _nerve_ of you."

"Uhm," she heard more than saw Sakura smile, "they say it only takes one act of bravery to fall in love -OW."

"Ups. Sorry, my hand slipped."

"It did not!"

"It totally did!"

"Oh forget it." Sakura finished their banter and Ino kept working on her hair, they both subdued to silence, Ino focusing purposefully on the task at hand. "How's your face?" Ino blinked at Sakura's question, the boy from sound, the one that got his arms broken by Sasuke, - _and what had happened to him? His chakra felt like..._ \- had punched her when she tied his arms with the wire and made him attack Dosu. The hit had connected with the cheek already wounded by Kiro, so her bandage had soaked with blood.

"It's fine. It doesn't hurt as bad as it looks," which was a complete lie, but she couldn't show weakness in front of Sakura. Ino could (and probably would), cry herself to sleep from the pain, and that without considering her still sore -or broke, but let's hope not- ribs. By that point, Ino decided she had experienced what a real fight is when outside the Academy rules and protectiveness to keep them all safe, and as it stands, she was already done. No more fighting. No more jumping to help friends or attack a group thinking it will be easy. It wasn't. Tomorrow Team 10 will march to the tower and _hope_ for the best. Now, she just would use her last strength to comb Sakura's hair.

"Although I don't understand why you did it, Lee's team had just arrived." Ino rolled her eyes at Sakura's words, but ultimately felt she could give her points for effort, her long-time friend seemed to be trying to trip Ino into saying how much stronger she was to start a new dispute. It was a good shot, Ino thought, it was Sakura's attempt to fish for someone who would downgrade her as much as she was doing it herself, but Ino still knew her better than anyone, and she decided at that point, that she was done letting Sakura downgrade her to lift herself up, too.

Besides, sure, Ino had sensed Neji and the other girl (Tenten, Lee called her), but she sensed them at the same time she jumped up to follow through Shikamaru's plan. She supposed that if their plan didn't work out, then they would have some backup. Plus, Neji's entrance unintentionally distracted the Sound-nin long enough for them to move; which granted, it was random, without his arrival, they probably would have had their asses served to them. But it happened, so there.

"To impress Sasuke-kun of course," she lied with a smirk.

Sakura tensed, but besides that, she didn't raise up to the challenge, "but why if they hadn't?"

Ino shrugged, "then I guess we wouldn't have tried… it was luck Sakura, sometimes it doesn't have to do with skill."

"Luck?" Sakura questioned. "No. I refuse to believe that. I refuse to leave my life in the hands of… _luck_." She ended with a tone of distaste in her mouth, a pout probably on her face that Ino could imagine but wasn't able to see.

Ino stopped her ministrations and squeezed Sakura's shoulder to get her to look at her, "you should never leave your life in the hands of anything or anyone but yourself." Ino blinked, completely letting aside that when performing her jutsu she was leaving her life pretty much in the hands of her teammates, "and I'm not saying you should, the more skill you have, the less luck you need. But still…" she trailed off, Sakura still watching her.

"Still?" Sakura asked, genuinely curious.

"Still." Ino deadpanned, "I can't add more than that."

Sakura pursed her lips but otherwise nodded, "alright. It's your turn."

"My hair is fine Foreh-"

"-I'm talking about your wounds." Sakura interrupted her. "I'll start with the one in your face, after that we can go behind a tree."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't flatter yourself, and don't think I haven't noticed the way you're leaning your weight to your left, what happened?"

Ino gritted her teeth in indignation, "ninja happened, what else? And you don't need to, I will receive medical attention once I reach the Tower. I'll be fine. Forehead, don't sweat it."

" _If_ you reach the tower," Sakura corrected with a roll of her eyes, "and that doesn't mean you shouldn't bandage or clean that nasty cut over there, just let me help you. Grow up."

"You grow up."

"Just sit down, Ino."

"Nope." And then Sakura's fist moved to her ribs and Ino screamed, but the blow never connected. "What the hell Forehead?!"

Sakura smiled innocently, "hurts?"

Ino bit her lip and promptly sat on the floor as instructed, a new wave of pain assaulted her side making her wince. Sakura's smile grew. Ino twisted her mouth, "infinitely."

While Sakura started her ministrations on her wound Ino quickly glanced over her shoulder at the four boys talking at the other side of their camp, Team Gai had quickly left after helping Lee stood, allowing Sakura to thank him and wave them goodbye -Ino still didn't like Neji that much because he might be cute and all but he had _dared_ to call them wimps and she was everything but, the bastard.- And now, with Sasuke's marks no longer covering the entirety of his body, he was surrounded by Naruto (who was assaulting him with questions of the likes of _'you did WHAT?'_ ), Shikamaru and Chöji. Sakura grabbed her face and turned it around so she would look at her and cleaned the cut on Ino's cheek with water, it was both refreshing and torture. "OW," she complained.

"Stay still. You have both an ugly cut and a bruise around it, stupid Zaku."

"Who?"

"Zaku is the boy who punched you," Sakura explained while grabbing Ino's head more forcefully as to stop her from moving.

"Oh, that guy, what a bastard." She said, Sakura nodded. "How come you know his name?"

"He said it. Or maybe Dosu did? I'm not sure. I just know." Sakura finished cleaning her wound -too much burn, too much- and grabbed a brand new band from her backpack to replace the dirty old one. She sweetly, carefully covered Ino's wound and slightly pressured the endings to make sure it stuck to her skin. Then she stood and offered her hand to Ino.

"You know, why would you make me sit down if I'll have to stand almost immediately after?" She mocked, cocking her head to the side. "It's like you want me to be in pain. What is it? A new tactic of yours? Dirty girl."

"What? Do you want me to drag you?" Sakura snorted.

"Alright," Ino smirked and lifted up her feet -AH, IT HURT- for Sakura to grab.

"Are _you serious_?" Sakura lifted one pink eyebrow and slapped Ino's right foot, "you can't be."

"It was _your_ idea," Ino explained, "I'm just complying." Sakura rolled her eyes but despite the PAIN -focused, hot, awfully hot-, Ino kept her ankles lifted for her to grab, Sakura glanced at the group of boys behind Ino -and Naruto's voice was still resounding through their ears so none of them were actually paying them any attention-, and then back at Ino.

"You can't be serious."

"I can't walk and I might have internal bleeding. If you want to help me, then _drag me_." She purred, and honestly, it was taking a lot of her to just mess around with Sakura, but this was the most normal thing she did in a long time (and it spoke volumes of their situation that her most normal thing to do was to be _dragged_ across the battle field by her former best-friend).

"Ugh, fine. Have at it," Sakura made a distasteful sound with her mouth and grabbed both of her ankles, starting to walk backward and dragging Ino's body along with her. Ino yelped in pain, and Sakura smiled.

"Oh, never mind Forehead, I'll walk." She said through gritted teeth.

"Oh no, no, no." Sakura maliciously smiled, "I can't have you walking now, can I? You might have internal bleeding."

It completely backfired because both it hurt like a bitch but also because at one point during their journey they heard Naruto ask _what are they doing?_ And Sasuke-kun replied _embarrassing themselves,_ making all of them laugh out loud and, yeah, it totally sucked.

* * *

Ino saw the way Chöji's fingers grabbed the paper they so desperately needed out of the girl's hands, the very tip of the scroll tearing her palm, blood following the trace he left behind. He turned, his scarf dancing around his neck barely out of reach of his opponent's grasp. His lips moved, words were leaving his mouth but the sound didn't carry through the wind. For a moment Ino thought about what he was trying to say but shook her head to get rid of the idea and focus on more pressing matters.

"Run Chöji!" Ino screamed from the doorframe where she was resting her weight. Standing in between the entrance of the tower and Chöji was Shikamaru, holding as best as he could the three members of the gënin team from Suna that screamed bloody murder in their high pitched voices, sweat dripping from his chin, the neck of his shirt completely damped, shadow wavering in exhaustion. It was a true statement to proclaim that their strategy lacked both good taste and dignity, that it wasn't up to what their clans were known to pull through, but this was a fight that hopefully will not be saved on their record. It was rather embarrassing to jump at their enemy when they thought they were passing to the next round, their defenses down at the taste of their soon to be victory, but what was worse than that was actually falling for it, so Ino allowed herself not to feel really bad about it.

They spent the night alongside team seven because Ino could barely walk despite Sakura's help to bandage her torso, all of them desperately needed some rest after their encounter with the sound team and, in her case, the fight against the Kusa team. Sakura had told her nothing about what happened before their arrival, and Ino wasn't gossipy enough to ask -although she was, but she knew better than to try to make Sakura talk about something she didn't want to-. They reasoned that it would be safer to take turns of two to keep watch in case the sound-nin returned, despite Naruto's guarantee that he could handle them alone and, once the first ray of light touched the treetops, they parted ways at Shikamaru's request. Luckily Sakura was grateful enough to give them her canteen of water to thank them for their help, which they consumed almost instantly since they weren't able to find any river despite being, apparently, shinobi competent enough to kill another person. In response, Ino was quick and funny enough to tell her that it barely covered their fee, and they left soon after, Ino glancing back at Sasuke's retreating form, her heart jumping with excitement, he was beautiful.

Now, at last, they were doing the original plan that they hadn't been able to perform _despite_ their wishes to do so. As it stands, Ino was of little help in this particular encounter. She couldn't quite move as freely as she used to during the first or even second day of the test, her body was barely holding itself together and the only thing keeping her from screaming was biting her lips forcefully. Her only assignment now was to stay close to the entrance as a last resort to stop the other team from entering the tower while Shikamaru, who recovered enough chakra to perform his shadow technique, held the three members of the other team while Chöji took the scroll from them, violently if needed.

Shikamaru allowed his best friend to pass him before releasing his shadow and running as fast as he could alongside him. The team from Suna, now free of his control, sprinted to reach them and used their entire weaponry in their attempt to stop them from entering the Tower and reach the safety they thought to have a minute ago. In desperation, Shikamaru jumped forward and immediately collapsed with both his teammates, sending the three of them inside the tower in one painful motion, their legs tangled.

"Ugh, move _away_ ," Ino ordered, pushing Shikamaru's legs away from hers. A puff of smoke and a unison scream of them later (a summoning scroll that was nothing to be impressed by -and honestly, she should have expected it), they were inside the third stage of the exam. If what Iruka-sensei had told them was true, and sadly she believed him because the man didn't know how to sugar coat things, they hadn't been nor the first team to arrive or the first one from Konoha. She didn't allow herself to give in to her curiosity and ask him how the rest of the teams that reached the third stage had done it, if they barely scraped the finish line like them or if their arrival had been more graceful. It took a lot of her strength to hold her tongue and force her brain to stop from recapitulating everything that went wrong in the forest and how she could have acted differently. Luckily for her, the pain she was suffering worked wonderfully as a distraction, so she had that to hold onto.

The smoke of the scroll had almost completely vanished out of the room when Iruka's smile shrunk out of existence and a serious expression settled on his face. He looked at them meticulously, resting a little longer on Chöji's jaw and Ino's form, gulping visibly and deepening his furrow as he opened his mouth to say something else, but quickly closed it. His breath became the only thing passing through his lips. The hallway they went through after their welcoming was white and bright enough to hurt her eyes, forcing her to wince at the sudden burst of artificial light. Despite the distress of the previous days, it was the walk between the room to the promising bed that finally shook her bones, the comfort of a mattress close enough to already enchant her eyes to a close and surrender to exhaustion.

Figures of proctors peeked from the doorframes around the hallway, smirks plastered in their faces like their success only meant a longer agony, whispers passed among them loud enough to reach their ears telling them that they had just until tomorrow morning to rest. A marvelous way to end this delightful part of the test. It was just as soon as she was able to caress the bed covers with her fingers that Chöji asked a grumpy looking man where the medical ward was and practically dragged her across the room -away from the bed!-, it was something that would have earned him at least a scold on her part, but he was taking her to be treated despite his own injuries, so she decided not to pursue that topic.

A medic entered the room soon after them, Ino precariously seating on the only unoccupied bed of the room, her sore side painfully throbbing. The woman told her _'yep these ribs are broken, that kid had a hell of a kick.'_ while Chöji looked at her apologetically from the corner of the room before being guided outside so she could strip and put a gown on for the doctor to treat her wounds, making her, finally, scream in pain. Between narrowed eyes and shallow breaths, she was able not only to hear the crack of her bones but also to notice the figure who looked suspiciously like Shikamaru peeking through the gap in the door and turning completely red with discomfort, quickly moving away.

In a particularly loud noise from her ribs she gritted her teeth with the question, "why am I not passing out?" while the woman's healing jutsu burned her skin, "it fucking hurts!"

"Language." The medic admonished her. "Women tend to have more pain endurance, mh? It wouldn't be nice to have mothers blacking out while giving birth, right?"

"What?" Her face contorted in a grimace at the sudden topic, and there was nothing she wanted more than to speak her truth and lash out to the person putting her through this pain.

"Bear it, you're a ninja are you not?" And with the question, a roll of eyes.

Despite her desire to do so, Ino did not faint, sweat dripping from her forehead to her jaw and finally reaching the floor, forming a tiny pool that in other circumstances will have mortified her. Compared to that, the treatment in her cheek was absolutely nothing to complain about, her sore side demanding her undivided attention. Once patched up, the doctor glanced at her from behind her long lashes and recommended her to rest for at least two weeks before returning to the field in order to make sure her ribs healed properly and smiled sweetly. Ino wanted nothing more than to rip that smile off of her face, she had only fifteen hours left to rest and the woman knew.

Once alone, Ino lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, but could not sleep.

* * *

His throat burned. He swallowed once, twice, sending more and more saliva down to relieve a little bit of the ache. He needed water almost desperately but was graceful enough not to ask for it nor complain about the need that the heat in the ambiance did nothing to soothe.

Around them, the bodies _burned_.

From a merely moral standpoint, Itachi completely deserved the discomfort, it was rather moronic thought to believe that the punishment for his lifetime of dirty deeds consisted in a throbbing throat, but he twisted the idea in his mind as to entertain himself while standing in front of the fire, waiting for it to consume. There was an acquaintance of him that believed in hell, he remembered, she often brought up the subject, simple punishments like this one being her favorite take on the topic, an eternal need not to be satisfied driving you completely mad. It was a subject humorous enough not to be completely irritating and one he could easily let by when finding comfort in between her legs. His face remained impassive at the remembrance of her predisposition. He breathed the scent around him, the distinct fragrance of flesh and smoke, stretching his hand in the air and watching the ashes pouring down on his palm.

And to think that this wasn't their mission yet. What an inconvenience.

Itachi couldn't help it, the corner of his mouth pulled upwards just slightly, it was a twisted smirk, almost a nervous twitch, to encounter a group of ninjas so high up north using the Tshigakure symbol was just a sick understanding of what humor is, Kamisama was in a good mood to toy with them it seemed. They disposed of them quickly enough, Itachi mused, watching Kisame furrowing his eyebrows and pinching his nose, Pein wouldn't have it otherwise, they had seen their clothes –and more importantly, recognized them and will link them to the organization-, and red cloud against black fabric wasn't precisely forgettable.

"Itachi…" It was almost a growl what escaped Kisame's mouth and forced Itachi to twist his head to look at him, successfully shattering his line of thought, the swordsman didn't acknowledge his gaze, his eyes focusing on the pile of bodies and the fire consuming it in front of them. "Don't judge me," he paused, perhaps expecting assurance on his part, Itachi made a point by not replying, "the smell," he added and hesitated again, the suspense stretching the thread of Itachi's patience.

For what it sounded like, Kisame seemed disgusted by the fragrance of scorched flesh and clothes, Itachi couldn't particularly judge this weakness. He cocked his head to the side and watched him turn, the light of the flames shone against his gray skin, the faint detail of his scales, almost indistinguishable on the daylight, became more perceptible when bathed in the orange light, the shadows made him look even more feral, almost monstrous.

"It kind of opened my appetite." The swordsman finished, his eyes moving from Itachi's face to the fire, his mouth sealed in a thin line, pink coloring his cheeks in such a weird display of shame and vulnerability that Itachi's emotionless façade almost cracks.

"Ah." Itachi almost shivers in distaste, his vocal cords straining with the force it took to move them in their thirst. He wondered what was the point Kisame was trying to make, did he expected Itachi to recoil in discomfort or see him as a bigger threat than he earlier let on by his sudden interest in human meat? Sure the man couldn't be that big of a fool to believe Itachi will fall for such childish tactics. The slight possibility of Kisame just confiding him with this shameful truth was just too moronic to be even considered, it had to be a tactic for something else, and Itachi was not going to bend for it. "I might not be much help," he cleared his throat and swallowed to lubricate, "maybe Zetsu will-"

"-don't you there compare me to that thing." Kisame interrupted him, his muscles tensing.

Itachi pursed his lips and made a spectacle of coking his head to the other side with a twist on his mouth and roll of his shoulders. So now they played the card of offense, hu? Kisame was a sight to consider, all pink as he was, Itachi was slightly impressed by his acting skills. Zetsu eats human meat as nourishment, he's not performing cannibalism per se because he's not a human being, at least that's how Itachi rationalized it, therefore, with Kisame looking not quite human himself, the idea of him eating one of the shinobi of the pile didn't seem much different from Itachi eating fish. It would be splendid, however, if Kisame allowed Itachi not to witness the act.

He was about to speak his thoughts on the matter as he deliberated when Kisame spoke again, "before you entertain _that_ idea of me, I'm not that far away as to eat a person," Kisame's teeth were bared, a warning in his posture that whatever left Itachi's mouth will set him off, as it was, Itachi choose to blink and return his attention to the fire. In between the flames, a corpse seemed to be staring right at him. "What is this doing to me, Itachi?" Kisame's question didn't make Itachi flinch, "I've never -I _would never_ -I…"

Kisame couldn't speak, something was eating his insides, Itachi couldn't gather the strength or care to help him out of his misery with a quick remark or an explanation, he bit with his molars and watched the face of the corpse burn, his skin turning black, the flames gulping him without mercy, his passage to the beyond with an eternal expression of pain. A wedding ring shone against the dead finger, reflecting the light.

"The fire is dying down," Itachi pursed his lips and bitted the inside of his cheeks until he could taste blood, swallowing it to comfort the still throbbing throat. "We need to go." He glanced up, looking beyond the ashes, beyond what used to be a pile of corpses, the embers slightly, faintly, illuminated the space. The few trees around were scorched.

"There's a ring," Kisame said and pointed at the ground, the golden ring Itachi saw earlier shone against the dusty remains of someone's beloved.

"I'll take care of it." He replied, and watched Kisame turn and perform his earth nature to bury the embers and ashes, wind jutsu would expand both some of the smoke and smell of their crime, and water will just increase the smoke, hence, earth was the better option. Still, they didn't have much time, the fire was not the best option when disposing of a body to keep their location and deed a secret, but it provided the most effectiveness. Itachi took the ring out of the ground and looked at it. No names. No markings. No date. Nothing that could give away anything about the owner and, more importantly, about the person that had an equal one. It wasn't a surprise, considering the profession of the person they just burned.

"Done," Kisame said from behind him.

"Go ahead, I'll destroy this and bury it somewhere."

"Right…" Kisame said and turned, "hurry up," he prompted and walked away, Itachi was graceful enough not to laugh at his face for trying to order him around.

He walked towards one of the most concealed trees that were just faintly damaged by the fire and gently placed the ring on one of its lower branches to set it on fire and destroy the evidence. It was dangerous to leave a trace behind, as little as it was, it might not be a body, but it was a proof of what their destiny had become when crossing paths with someone whom they shouldn't.

He looked around before completing the task, his eyes roaming the deserted space, it was obvious by the destruction that it engulfed a fight between two potent forces, and no competent shinobi could not notice the change in the dirt or scorched trees, was it that bad to leave the ring? It couldn't be traced back at him –and there was nothing one more body in his account could do to worsen his situation-, and on a deeper note, it probably couldn't be traced back to the original owner either, leaving it here will be more like a mockery, a silly game. He wasn't above those naughty feats, and there were so few things he could do to entertain himself. Itachi grabbed the ring, looked at it with the corner of his mouth upwards, and promptly set it on the branch again before leaving, deciding to play once more.

* * *

He believes that it can't get worse than this, which serves as some sort of consolation. Itachi stared at the side of the tent he was facing with a blank expression, the arm on which he rested his weight painfully asleep, the heat of Kisame's back against his own. The Kiri-nin snored but Itachi maintained his expression neutral, the feeling that someone might be watching them was as possible in his mind as nonexistent in reality, who would ever spy on two assassins like them? Who would ever be that stupid?

(But then again, the cemetery is full of stupid people).

He swallowed with a grunt. Uchiha Itachi, heir to the Uchiha clan; Uchiha Itachi, eldest brother; Uchiha Itachi, missing-nin. Uchiha Itachi, _sleeping buddy_.

_See Kisame? I can be funny_. He thinks.

He doesn't really believe it.

His throat burned with unspoken truths and incipient sickness, Itachi wasn't exactly sure which one of them was the actual problem when his brain decided to overload itself with remembrances. The only secure thing he had was the cough that awoke and he expelled through his mouth, moving his body against his will despite his tight control over it, forcing him to use his hand to muffle the sound. Kisame snored again, seemingly unfazed by his teammate's sickness, and Itachi almost, _almost_ , turns around to cough on his face, just to see his reaction. Will he eat him then? Itachi allowed himself to smile in between coughing fits, he wasn't funny, no, he was honestly quite hilarious.

Once the coughing seemed to stop, he closed his eyes and breathed slowly, licking his lips in the look for trails of blood or saliva that might have been expelled, his lungs felt like they were filled with stones, and laying down didn't help with the sensation, but he was too exhausted to sit. It was probably the smoke that awoke the problem, the smoke and the ashes. It served him right for being so careless, the mighty fool, standing so close to a fire with his condition like a noob, wasn't it enough the thirst that he had to add the cough? He swallowed difficulty and cleared his throat for good measure.

"Oh for _fucks-_ " Kisame sat up abruptly, his tunic falling off his shoulder, "you're driving me crazy with all this noise, fucking hell."

Itachi stared at him with narrowed eyes at his rudeness, "I apologize for the inconvenience, next time I'll try to keep my condition out of your hearing range," he replied sarcastically with a grimace. Winning a bark of laughter from the still sleep-deprived swordsman that quickly turned into a growl.

Kisame pinched his nose, forcefully closing his eyes and clenching his jaw, "you need to treat that," there was no sweetness in his words nor concern, it was the tone of someone exhausted of both him and his situation, Itachi's sickness was an inconvenience that needed to be deal with, it could jeopardize their missions not only by exposing their location but also preventing both of them from resting.

"You were snoring." Itachi retorted, already playing out the outcome.

"And?"

Itachi smirked, "you should treat that."

Kisame licked his front teeth threateningly and scrunched his nose with displeasure, he glanced at him and opened his mouth to say something, perhaps an explicit menace that will finally shatter the charade of their relationship, but he eventually closed it, saying nothing at all. At that, Itachi swallowed a new wave of coughing fits that threatened to go up his throat and felt like chewing on glass shards, he supposed it was no good to contradict Kisame's recommendation. It surprised him to some extent how the tent still smelled like plastic.

"I can't sleep anymore," Kisame both deadpanned and complained, "we might as well start whatever we're supposed to do today." Itachi moved until he was looking at Kisame's face, his figure was somewhat blurry, and he wondered if this was because of sleep deprivation or because his eyes were tired.

It wasn't the most dignified thing to reply, but Itachi allowed himself not to care about it while Kisame wasn't awake enough to understand his lapse, so "leave me alone," was out of his mouth before he was able to think twice about it.

Kisame just snorted, "I'll be outside." And then he left the tent without another word, he cleared his throat for good measure and could swear Kisame glanced at him with a scowl before stepping out of the tent. It was until he was alone that Itachi noticed how much heat Kisame's body produced, his departure made the air inside breathable.

What an undignified way to be found this was, Itachi knew it was far-fetched to believe someone will sneak upon them, but this situation was embarrassing enough just to think about, two highly-trained and dangerous ninja sleeping together in a tent, smelling of sweat, smoke and abandonment. It was laughable, but Itachi wasn't prone to laugh. He cleaned his face of the sweat with his calloused palm and cleared his throat.

When he stepped out of the tent, Kisame was seated close -but not close enough as to actually get warmth, of a small fire. His tiny, dark eyes shone with the flame light. It was near dawn Itachi realized, blinking more than once to make his eyes focus, the cold rising with the sun. "We have dried meat, not that it comes as a surprise," Kisame informed. He sat in front of the bonfire, across from his teammate, and felt the way the swordsman's tiny eyes followed his motions, shadows obscuring his features, making him look like a predator again.

Kisame threw the bag of dried meat over the fire with biting precision and Itachi caught it in the air, "is there any water?" He asked, caressing his throat and licking his lips, opening the bag and tossing a piece of dried meat in his mouth.

"Give it a minute," Kisame replied, and just then Itachi noticed the small metal pot resting on some embers in a pit near the fire. They both stared at the water inside the pot in silence, waiting for it to boil and, thus, be consumable. It was weird how comfortable they could pretend to be in their silence and how aware they were of each other, Itachi wouldn't doubt in cutting Kisame's throat if the guy even looked like he was thinking about hurting him. "Ah, there," Kisame smiled, "boiling."

"You need to let it boil for a couple of minutes…"

"Nah, it'll be fine," Kisame replied, and took the pot with his fingers, wincing at the hot metal. "Oh, fucking hell. I shouldn't have done that." He complained and set the pot in the ground.

_No, you shouldn't have_ , Itachi thought without voicing, watching Kisame blow cold air at his fingers with his eyebrows furrowed. At last, Kisame stopped trying to ease the pain on his hand and took the pot once more, which was cold enough to hold, and smelled the water - _nothing swampy over here, perfect for consumption!-_ and blew it, once, twice, until he drank a sip. His face contorted in a way that reminded Itachi of drunk people. "Kamisama, this is _disgusting_." He grunted.

"You said it didn't smell, and I quote, swampy."

"It's bitter." Kisame clicked his tongue like tasting the flavor, "and warm. There's no worse combination." He finished, passing him the pot.

"I could think of some," Itachi shrugged, and drank. It was worse than Kisame had described it, but it was good for his throat, so he kept drinking.

"Bet you could," Kisame licked his lips and trembled, "I miss alcohol." Itachi rolled his eyes and drank once more, his thirst subduing at last. "What? I'm a human being," Kisame smiled, "sort of, kind of, well I'm _something_. And this something misses alcohol."

Itachi replied by tossing the remaining water into the bonfire.

"Oh come on! Give a warning at least!" Kisame complained, coughing and kicking dirt in the smoldering fathoms.

"What's the point of doing it if I give you a heads up, first?"

"You know," Kisame bared his teeth, "to be such a stoic guy, you can be such a childish asshole."

"I'm loosening up."

"Loosen up in your free time, Uchiha." Kisame picked Samehada up -which he tossed when the smoke reached his eyes- and Itachi ignored the stupid brat barely murmured.

"I'll pack the tent." He said and moved towards it while Kisame kept blowing away the ashes off Samehada. It was not long after it that they began to move once more, they needed to cover as much ground as possible in the shortest period of time as to reach their destination soon enough to perform their mission.

"I don't like the Yonbi."

"You don't know the Yonbi."

"That doesn't mean I-" Kisame cocked his head to the side. "We are close," he said abruptly, kicking some dirt, "perhaps a day away, hmm," he thought for a while, "half a day if we really put effort on it, but I really don't want to put effort on it." Itachi kept his mouth shut and watched his partner move, he had noticed the change in his demeanor. "Fuckin' Iwa," Kisame complained, "they could stab you in the back without any remorse, and don't think the shinobi are above that but, they are... you know, fucking Iwagakure." He accommodated Samehada's belt and subtly sniffed the air. "Besides... they _suck_ at ambushes." He deadpanned, taking his sword out.


	15. Submit to Desire

** Submit to desire **

* * *

_Warning: Non –particularly- graphic/mild sexual content._

* * *

He feels that there's something between his teeth when the group of ninjas ambushes them, but he ignores them and focuses instead on cleaning with his tongue his front teeth until he's free from the sensation that has driven him crazy for the last minute. The noise he makes only seems to annoy their ambushers -if their furrowed eyebrows on their otherwise stoic expressions are something to take into account-, but he keeps his face impassive, even if the entire moment must look rather bizarre.

"How rude," Kisame spoke to him while taking a quick glance at their attackers and then pointing at them with Samehada, "don't you see we have company?" There was a somber undertone in his voice, a smile stretching his chapped lips.

"Hoshigaki Kisame," the shinobi in front of them -the leader, by the looks of it- said. The scarlet color of their uniforms a sweet contrast against the brown of the earth. Five Jönin stood in front of them, their hitai-ate bathed in the shine of the harsh sunlight, almost successfully looking like a threat. "And you are…" the man turned, his fingers twitching close to his kunai like looking for reassurance, there was a gulp in the man's throat as recognition poured down on him and stripped his face of colors, eyes wide, the old fool. "U-Uchiha..." the man could not mask his shock and Itachi did not think him worthy of deeper considerations.

Itachi sighed and four jönins unsheathed their Tantös and Kunais. The rudeness.

"Hold it!" The Iwa leader shouted and his team froze, their bodies tense in the position they settled, their fingers tight around their weapons. It seemed that the temperature around them dropped a couple of degrees by the way they shivered, despite the sweat Itachi felt dripping from the back of his neck. He clicked his tongue with distaste. Itachi's expression didn't waver from his impassive stance, their level of threat wasn't particularly important, but he knew better than underestimate people with fear. "We are not here to fight you." The man spoke once more, showing his bare hands to them, "we are here to escort you."

"Captain," a female jönin at his right whispered, her will abandoning her soul through her pores.

"We have orders," the captain barked in response, barely glancing at his subordinate, standing straighter as if to compensate for the woman's deflation. "My name is Juro, we came here under our Tsuchikage's orders."

"What do you mean under your Tsuchi-"

"Let him speak, Kisame." Itachi interrupted him.

"We were told to escort you to your mission." Juro deadpanned with a click of his jaw, his eyebrows furrowed and veins popping out of his forehead in a more comic than menacing façade.

"Ah," Itachi said while blinking, sniffing the sweaty smell in the air.

"Ah?" Kisame looked at him, his grimace stretching even further with barely concealed killing intent, "what do you mean you're here to escort us? Itachi…" There was no response on his part, Itachi looked at Kisame with his impassive expression unwavering, his tongue checking his teeth for leftovers soundlessly, and Kisame's smile disappeared, the pretense dropped. "I know what our motherfucker mission _is_ ," he narrowed his eyes in warning and returned his attention to their ambushers, "I want to know why five jönin are here to escort us to what is supposed to be an off the chart mission."

"We have the scroll from your leader authorizing us."

_Preposterous_ , how low had Iwa fallen to treat them like gullible children. Kisame bared his teeth and Itachi entertained the possible shred of the existence of such scroll to escort them like scholars to a mission that consisted in massacring citizens of their own country. Önoki must have already lost his mind if he allowed such a stupid plan to be carried out. The loss of five, apparently capable, jönins was immeasurable for any hidden village with pride, it didn't matter how much the population grew out of what they were capable of withholding, they-

_Oh._

"Here, I have it here," Juro continued when they failed to respond, he showed them a parchment with a red seal as proof, opening slowly, the paper making a faint sound between the man's fingers.

"Let's stop this charade," Itachi spoke through almost sealed lips, his tone bored, unwavering, concealing his disdain and bubbling anger. "I have low patience for bad planning and worse execution." He added as an afterthought, looking at Kisame's figure from the corner of his still black eyes.

The scroll that the man was holding was now fully open, even in the distance, Itachi could see the places where the pen had applied too much pressure, damaging the paper and blurring some words with stains of darker shades of the black ink. "Wh-"

"Don't speak." Itachi stopped him, and turned his eyes red, the man froze with a hold of his breath, the sudden silence in the ambiance transmitting the fake sensation of calmness that will soon be shattered with the sound of metal cutting flesh open. "You have wasted enough of our time as it is." Time that he could have used to rest, time he could have used to fantasize about Sasuke killing him, time he could have used to do better things than to travel for days and sleep on humid tents with Kisame's skin pressed tightly on his back.

Juro bit his upper lip and glanced at his group, Iwagakure was at least three hundred kilometers down the path, so it wasn't far-fetched to think more ninjas will be close by to intercept them should they engage in combat. Their original plan had been to discreetly go around Iwa's less secured borders in order to reach the town they were hired to wipe off. To think that the Tsuchikage, a man smart enough to know better, will compromise the secrecy of their mission by telling more than a handful of trusty jönin was disconcerting, but again, little did Itachi know about the nature of those composing the higher ranks of the village, so it might be possible for them not to care for people other than their own. But the stupidity, the loathing stupidity of these shinobi to mask their intentions with a sudden escort duty, what a disgrace they were!

"I'll take that you were expecting Deidara, am I wrong?" He asked, scratching the skin under his lips, watching the Iwa group move their eyes to the ground not to look at his Sharingan, as if it would save them. "I'm sure his departure put your village in a rather tough position since his deflection brought both the shadow of disgrace to your pretense of unwavering loyalty and your capacity to protect secrecy."

"How dare you speak of disgrace, Uchiha." A kunoichi spoke with her eyes still on the earth beneath her, fists shaking in fury, white teeth showing, "when you were nothing more for the village that you used to serve."

Itachi allowed himself to glance at the woman and notice her beauty, such a pity to see it go to waste under the earth she was looking at so fiercely, feeding the worms. "I don't see how that argument invalidates my words," he responded calmly, "with that way of thinking of yours, no wonder you tried to pull this stupidity off."

"Deidara has something that belongs to us." Juro intervened before the woman could respond, glancing at Itachi's feet, his knees slightly bent as if ready to run towards him.

"The scroll of his technique?" Itachi asked, cocking his head to the side and watching Kisame stretch his back in a seemingly relaxed manner despite the situation, the man liked to tease, but Itachi was particularly upset with the group's stunt to allow his games. "Then I'll fail to see how his debt affects me or my partner." He continued.

"It's not his technique! It belongs to Iwagakure and we received information that he's a member of your organization! That he was recruited into it!"

"And I take that you invented a mission to hire us in the hopes he will be the one to be sent? Let me tell you, Juro-sama," he mocked, "that doesn't seem like a flawless plan, considering the end result." He said, opening his arms to expose himself. There was no response of the Iwa captain other than red cheeks, Itachi hoped the shame that spiked the temperature will consume them all, "my, my, what a miscalculation of yours to intercept without checking who you were intercepting, now look where that put us." He finished, the mocking tone not lost in their ears by the way their necks reddened further down.

"Itachi," Kisame's tone was surprisingly gentle, "I'm not opposed to get this over with, you know, before having more company."

The sudden breeze accompanied Itachi's movement, his head turning to look at Kisame's eyes. The swordsman didn't bother into pretending he was concerned by his doujutsu, finding his gaze straight on. "Ah yes," he replied, "that's right Kisame."

Juro glanced up then, terror shaking his foundations as a man and shinobi, "hold on, we don't have to fight."

"Don't we?" Kisame was the one who spoke next, his sarcasm muffled by his sudden impatience, the trap planned against Deidara seemed a personal offense for him, not for the same reasons as Itachi, since the swordsman probably considered to be worst the travel that was forced on them instead of their assumption of him being gullible enough to believe such stupid excuse! Itachi couldn't stop the anger rising from the pit of his stomach, but he forced it down.

"We can pay you the entire value of the mission-"

"-it's that so?"

Their lack of interest in the money pushed Juro to change the direction of his response, Itachi knew better than to pass on the money he was offering, but the quantity of their payment wasn't enough to allow this scandal. "There're five of us, despite who you are, you can't brush off the fact that you're outnumbered. And our reinfo-"

"Enough." Itachi's command was all it took to stop the man from speaking further, he pinched his nose, feeling the dryness of his palm, and bit with his molars in an inopportune slip of his control. The man was right. "Kisame, we need to go."

"What?" He growled.

"As Juro gently stated, there're five of them, pathetic as they seem, engaging them in combat will be a complete waste, we can't be too careful. We don't have enough time to dispose of them before the arrival of their reinforcements, it's not worth it."

"But we could-" he cut himself off before he could continue and spill something from within the organization's goal and their seeking for information on the Yönbi which the Hidden Stone village possessed. His eyes were wide with fury, Samehada shaking in anticipation and now frustration at not being allowed to feed, "not engaging in combat? It's that your solution to this _shame_?" Kisame asked Juro now, turning from Itachi's gaze, "and to act like you're the ones who allowed _us_ to leave? Preposterous! You could at least pretend you wanted our bounty, and that's why you ambushed us. You little shits."

Something cracked inside Itachi's bones at the sound of Kisame's frustration, something thick and dark covered his muscles like a veil of pure malice, of want, desire. Common courtesy, even for shinobi faced in the previous calm of what ought to transform into combat, was a behavior he respected truthfully. The deference of escalating their taunts to a peak that will subdue with the clash of their bodies didn't seem to bother those in front of him, and while usually he wasn't one to fall for those primal urges –avoiding a battle when allowed-, they had pushed his buttons with their rudeness.

"You lucky little bastards…" the swordsman mumbled under his breath, skin-tight against his muscles.

There was a moment of contemplation when he glanced again at the group and saw Juro swallow with something close to… relieve, perhaps. He wasn't one to waste chakra or time in people with such low capacities of reasoning and yet… "I wouldn't call them that," he whispered while scratching the skin under his lips once more, expression flawlessly still as a porcelain doll again, resting his forearm on the edge of his tunic, soft and warm clothe caressed the soft, pale skin there, tickling him faintly, " _Amaterasu_."

* * *

In the orange dim light he moved, the wooden floor creaking under his footsteps, walls of dark red painting engulfed the space and confined the occupants of each room with their needed pretense of privacy, the sound leaving the chambers strongly enough not to be concealed in its entirety, muffled voices unpleasantly reaching his ears.

She was a beauty of young age and ample bosom, the red kimono hugging her almost imperceptible waist tightly, the silk soft against her pale skin allowed him to picture every secret her body might have, hair long enough to reach her hips, brown and shinning against the crimson tunic. She guided him around corridors that were surrounded by occupants behind the closed doors, light casting shadows on her back, hips, and bottom enticingly enough for him to contemplate in between blinks.

Graceful enough not to immediately halt and collide with him, she slowly reached for a stop in front of one of the doors, the sound of her nails fishing for the key inside her robes interrupted their mutual silence. She glanced once towards him, cheeks pinking at the sight of his face, before opening the lock, golden metal shining against her fingers. The door collided with the wall once she opened it and he furrowed his eyebrows at the sound, she tossed an apologetic look while moving aside to allow him entrance, and once beyond the doorframe, he glanced around the petit space. Bed sheets against a mattress on a simple wooden bed with no headboard and white walls without windows, scent of secrecy and confinement that screamed the need for ventilation. It was dishonorable.

The door clicked shut softly, her movements slow like whispers in the summer breeze as compensation for the disastrous start of what was going to become their intimacy. The fact that she wasn't wearing perfume was what he noticed next, her odor almost imperceptible in between the scents of the room, his back was still turned on her. He sat on the mattress and finally faced her, her figure was leaned against the wood, hands on her back grabbing the handle and giving him an apprehensive look, green eyes obscured with her burning lust. She swallowed and licked her lips, disentangling herself from the door, stripping slowly under his gaze.

Red silk caressed her skin on its pacing, contrasting so roughly against her paleness that, for a moment, it was like blood was bathing her, a warm crimson veil. Then the kimono fell off of her completely, pooling around her feet, enticing his gaze with her naked, inviting form. She didn't blush at his futile devotion, too much experience maintained the original color of her skin untouched, and she settled quickly in between his legs, knees on each side of his hips, the core of her existence sweetly pressed against his groin.

"No. Lay down." He commanded, his voice devoid of any emotion, and quickly flipped her over, pressing her against the mattress and leaning on top of her, the contact and control awakening his manhood in the way her nakedness failed. There was no need for him to shed himself out of his outfit the way she did, simply pulling out the reason of his shame and discomfort to penetrate her.

It was a moist, tight, and warm pressure pulsating all around him, pleasure waves went through him in synchronicity with his motions, she moaned under him, but he didn't care much for her kindness. He bit with his molars and fastened his pace, roughly, fingers grabbing her hip bones with enough strength to leave white pressure marks. When he released, she pretended to come, professional as she was. Sighing, he finally relaxed his shoulder blades, pain releasing its hold on him for the time being until it built again unbearable enough for him to look purchase. At least she didn't attempt to kiss him, a thing he had to dodge as gracefully as he could during his youth with former lovers, exchanging money to have that comfort seemed a low price to pay.

He stood and cleaned himself while she watched, lips sealed and cheeks pink by the heat on the room. He did not gave her more consideration than that. Buttoning his pants, he walked away in complete silence, a bag of coins tossed above his shoulder to respect their agreement. He heard her lips part as to speak, the couple of times he had indulged this savage part of him ended in a similar fashion, women wanting to entice him to stay and share another shag but, luckily enough, no sound did he heard when he opened the door and left. If she spoke, her voice was overpowered by the muffled sounds of pleasure of other rooms.

There was no grass where they had decided to settle, close at the borders as they were, miles away from the brothel he had been forced to attend to release his growing tension. Sex wasn't something foreign to him who lost his virtue during his time on ANBU, young as he was, lusted over and desired by both women and men of his unit and clan. Intercourse was like money -interchangeable, forgettable, something he used to obtain things, information, and purchase. He cared none for his lovers or the act itself, but his body, following the curse of its nature, didn't always agree with his mind in the matter, and sometimes he just needed that touch… that softness and warmness.

Kisame was seated with his legs stretched, the right one above his left one, hands over his stomach and back against a tree. His chin was almost touching his collarbone, eyes closed as if asleep, and a small smile on his lips. "Better?" Was all he asked, Itachi would have been mortified in his youth, now he felt absolutely nothing at the mocking.

"Let's go," he replied, watching the sunset's glow.

"I'll make it that you want to travel during the night? Reckless, Itachi." There was a smile in his voice and a stretch of his lips, but he stood up despite the remark, ready for departure. Days had passed since their failed mission in Iwagakure no Sato and nothing has been said between them about the way it ended. Pein did not react well to their report, which was to be expected, ordering them not to spoke about what happened again, particularly to Deidara. Kisame, thankfully, didn't ask about Itachi's seemingly new technique, clearly attributed to his doujutsu, only cursing at loud at the spectacle and watching his eye bleed, mumbling something about black and fire. They didn't stay to watch it consume those it engulfed, it wasn't necessary as putting it off was impossible, so they ran away with the salute of screams in the distance and then, silence.

The harshness of his deed should have helped the imposing tension that the situation in itself awoke, but it ultimately fed her. So, in their escape, he resolved to find release somewhere else, Kisame's knowledge of brothels and their locations didn't particularly surprise him considering the way he looked.

Itachi tapped the sole of his sandals on the ground, trying to get rid of the dirt on his toes, and glanced at Kisame from the corner of his eyes still redly activated from his return. Keeping his gaze red was a barely consuming chakra feat and it cost nothing to his eyesight, unlike the Amaterasu that he foolishly knew to waste - _foolish, foolish Itachi, subduing himself to his anger_. "Unless is your desire to stay, I'll see no point in delaying our return." He provided, fixing the collar of his robe with the tips of his outstretched fingers. His impulses were erratic things that he thought himself capable to dominate, trusting his mind to reign over his body and its most basic whims, what a boldness he had to overestimate his own value.

"To the hideout, right?" Kisame asked, "no more detours?"

Itachi pursed his lips, "I don't think Pein will pull that stunt off again, seeing how well we handled it." There was a roar hidden in the calmness of his voice, reigning himself once more after the unescapable slip he ought to keep at bay, "besides, I need to rest to be at full capacity, moreover considering our future destination."

"Ah yes," Kisame smiled, "the nine tails. Aren't you excited to be returning home?"

Itachi didn't dignify that question with an answer, starting to walk again the path to return. For now, he just concentrated on his need to rest his body and eyesight since, after that, in little more than a couple of weeks, his concern will be somewhere else.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Itachi's Amaterasu is shown for the first time in chapter 148 of Naruto's manga. The technique, while new to the reader, Naruto and Jiraiya (the person they were running away from and that forced Itachi to perform Amaterasu in order to escape), doesn't seem new to Kisame, who never asks about it. In that sense, is Itachi who explains that until Tsukuyomi (moon) which he used against Sasuke, becomes Amaterasu (sun) he shouldn't use it -he is basically saying that he shouldn't use Amaterasu because of the damage that it gives to his eyesight. Since it's not clear whether Kisame knew the existence of the technique or not, although I do believe there's no canon material to support that he didn't, I decided to create the situation in which Itachi used the Mangekyo Sharingan for the first time in front of Kisame. It should be noticed that the reason why its introduction is not brought up later on in more detail is because I don't see Itachi confiding Kisame with the workings of his MS, this chapter is centered more on Itachi's mind-state than his relationship with his partner.
> 
> Please let me know what your thoughts are on this, I'm afraid I might not be clear enough through the chapter for you to understand what is exactly happening or why Itachi reacts the way he does.


	16. The broken blossom

** The broken blossom **

* * *

_A/N: Look at me go, running away from canon like that._

* * *

There was a weird silence around the room. She assumed that the smell of blood that had assaulted their nostrils when the first combat begun was a pretty powerful subduer to ordinary conversations. There was the usual banter and sarcastic remarks between opposite sides of clashes, but silence predominated around the boxes where they watched down at dismembered limbs. Shino had left the sound-nin almost pulverized, arm bent in an unnatural way were it hang from what was left of his forearm, the other one resting on the place on the ground where it had fallen. Ino couldn't help the sympathy that arose on her despite the bruise on her cheek, watching the hand that had harmed her lying on the tile, away from its fainted owner.

The puppeteer hadn't been particularly better, but he was stopped before he could completely crush bones, they had been lucky enough no to see completely what had happened behind the puppet, but the sounds it made weren't muffled by it, and the expectancy of another limb falling off had been nerve-wracking until the proctor called it off.

What had been worst, however, was the first fight. It hadn't been particularly violent, Shino held –up to that point-, the trophy for the grotesque spectacle he made with the sound-nin (and what an awful thing that she knew Sakura had told her his name, but she couldn't remember it). But the way she had felt Sasuke's chakra leave his body when the other gënin touched him made her panic. She glanced around, desperate for someone to intervene, but saw adults watching calmly and gënins not concerned enough, even Sakura seemed oblivious to what Sasuke was going through. She felt alone in her crippling fear.

But then in the time it took for her to blink twice, the whole situation reversed, and a nauseating, dark, thick chakra emanated from Sasuke's pores, she brought her hands to her mouth to stop herself from gagging at loud and Asuma gave her a pointed look. It would be so much easier if she could just pinch her nose and stop herself from feeling, but nature was against her wishes, and stopping herself from sensing completely was an impossible task for her. What she felt was a similar wave of power than the one he emanated on the forest, weaker, but just the same in nauseous essence. Luckily it didn't last long for her to grow more concerned, and he was escorted out by his sensei shortly after his winning fully conscious, and that's the last she knew about his health state.

"Is Sasuke okay?" She asked to team seven while walking down, her name and Sakura's displaying on the screen. Sakura did not acknowledge her presence, full-on resolution, and mask of resentment back on –perhaps it wasn't a mask, perhaps it was real, Ino couldn't bear the thought. She did not respond to her question, but Ino chose to believe that either she did not hear her, or she was on full rival's mode. Kakashi did replied to her concern, perhaps sensing her trembling hands, and nodded reassuringly, his visible eye squinted, mask stretched as if concealing a smile. Oh, the way her heart jumped in relief, she touched her bosom where she felt her pulse and exhaled, reaching her place in front of Sakura.

"I'm not going to fight you over Sasuke," Sakura told her, and Ino was pushed to the reality of the moment with the suddenness of a slap.

"What was that?" She replied, perplexed.

"You and Sasuke-kun don't go together anyway, and I'm completely stronger than you right now. I don't even need to be concerned with you."

Ino was hotheaded. Ino was stubborn. Ino knew perfectly well who she was and how she was, and was also perfectly capable of controlling her emotions to submission –to some extent. The world was ruled by masked people, manipulating impressions were the core of her clan, and mind-control was a deeper, and fragile artwork where patience and perseverance were key. Her clan techniques allowed her a faster, precise, and temporal seizure of another mind, but that didn't mean that they didn't control and shaped the impressions others had of them without the use of it.

She would have allowed Sakura to toy with her if another reality existed, she would even let her punch her first, Sakura was never a match for Ino when it came to physical combat, but what the girl lacked in strength she compensated with adamancy and resistance to Ino's fists. There were more ways to win a battle than mere, raw power, and people loved to downgrade her talents with a glance to her skinny arms.

The remembrance of Howard pushed to the front of her mind and she blinked her shock, not understanding the reason why her subconscious thought him to be a fair comparison. She shook her head and saw Sakura tying her hitai-ate on her head, fulfilling a promise they did a while ago. It could have been something to congratulate her if it was her attempt at emotional manipulation, but Ino knew better than to believe this was a mere spectacle. Again, in another reality, she would have done the same, letting her emotions for her former best friend to cloud her mind. Now, with the pain on her ribcage that didn't allow her to move as freely as she once could and the remembrance of fallen limbs, under no circumstance could Ino keep subduing to Sakura's wishes.

"Not even his type," she crossed her arms, keeping her hitai-ate secured around her waist, Sakura's green gaze didn't ignore the movement and the cloth still attached to her mid-section, her lips pursing in distaste. "I guess you should know, you talk to him almost on daily basis, being his teammate and all, right? Since you were lucky enough of me being who I am."

Did Sakura want Ino to take this fight seriously? Fine, this was Ino being serious, furthermore, this was Ino being pissed. "What?" Sakura bared her teeth and red color tinted her cheeks and neck in pure fury, the silence of the room was almost deafening, there was a line Ino swore to never cross when they were friends that now laid blurred in between them.

It was part of the fight, she decided. "Are you too far gone on your self-believe of importance that you didn't pause to think why they put you there?" She pointed her head to the place Kakashi was standing, a smirk on her lips, "I was – _am_ better than you, better grades in almost every single department, second best to Sasuke-kun, the only reason why I wasn't put in team seven was solely because of the role that I have to fulfill." She pointed now to her own team, swallowing the trembling of her voice. Sakura's will was crumbling, it was easy to see in the way her lips curled down as understanding reached her. Her self-esteem (such a volatile, fragile little thing Sakura hadn't mastered to build on her own, using both Sasuke and Ino's perception of her to either love or hate herself), falling deeper down, Ino opening her mouth to end it all. "Even this part of yourself that makes you so proud is _my_ doing."

In the silence, Sakura's tears seemed to resound on the floor, maintaining her decency enough as not to weep, Asuma whispered a low "Kamisama," that was probably intended to keep secretly between those under his command, but little did he succeed in not shattering the quiet that followed her cutting words.

"YOU LITTLE BIT-" Naruto's insult was interrupted by a palm over his mouth, Ino didn't hold that against him, it was just natural to want to protect the girl in front of her, she knew better than anyone how it felt. A shuriken made its way to her fingers, tossing it was a natural occurrence after her skin felt the cold metal of the star, Sakura's reaction was slow –tears blurred her vision, and barely dodge the attack, a line of blood marked the place where it had kissed her skin.

In her stumbling to the side, Ino moved towards her, if she was barely better than Sakura in strength, then she left her in the dust when it came to speed, she punched, hard, Sakura's nose yielding to her power, splashing her knuckles with blood. Back she flew, colliding with the wall behind her, her back making a dull sound at the brutal contact. Ino quickly took the cable she stole from the Kusa team and ran again towards her, in the background Naruto and, perhaps, Lee –it was hard to know for sure given the blond boy's volume-, were screaming for Sakura to get up, to not quit, to make her bit the dust. It was a fine sentiment and it seemed to work to an extent, but none of them had the hold on Sakura that Sasuke has, so she wasn't able to properly get her head on the game once more.

Ino tried to kick Sakura's ribs and felt the effort on her own torso, the attempt useless when Sakura was able to move aside, her sadness became pure anger with the desire to prove herself of her worth. It would be trickier to exploit, but it was better than having her reasoning smoothly. Both of them started a dance of dodges and attacks that barely connected to the other one's body to inflict much damage, Ino used mostly her arms to attack and her feet to detour, moving gracefully in-between Sakura's openings but unable to hit her. Sakura, on the other hand, was raw resolution and fire, there was no grace on her movements but the pure craving to hurt and reach conclusion, their styles of combat equally unable to overpower the other.

But in her fury, Sakura failed to see the purpose behind Ino's dance and it was only when Ino pulled and Sakura's body was trapped in between her wire, stumbling forward and falling to her knees, that she understood. "Forfeit." She commanded, "it's over." Ino knew that her advantage was quickly fading and she pushed the girl's buttons to end the match, Sakura was smart enough to force herself to cool and see reason, and it will do her no good to have come this far only to allow her strategy to vanish.

Sakura bit with her molars, tears of frustration and anger pouring down her cheeks, "never." Ino tightened her hold and pumped chakra through the wire to keep her steady, it was visible how it burned a little bit of her rival's skin. Sakura pursed her lips and squinted her eyes shut in pain, but didn't speak again, the proctor glanced at both of them, cocking his head to the side in wait, perhaps Sakura had another trick on her sleeve and, for a moment, Ino swallowed in fear.

"If you don't, I will possess you, your mind is weak enough for me to control at my will. I'm trying to save you from that humiliation, or is it that you want me to see what's inside you?"

Sakura gasped at the threat, arms trying to free her form of Ino's hold, if it came down to it, Ino will be forced to use her jutsu on her because she wouldn't last long by holding her down. "N-no… you promised, you-"

"-whatever I promised back then," Ino was quick to interrupt, her heart beating painfully inside her ribcage, "it was between me and my best friend… and it has been years since she ceased to exist."

Green eyes opened slowly, shinning with new tears that they will soon share, and looked at her, none of them spoke, and the few seconds that passed was a battle of spirits that Ino knew she had already won. Sakura had succumbed to her defeat the moment she had let Ino define her. In between trembling lips, it escaped "I forfeit," so low and so soft that she believed it had never be spoken, and she was only sure of its real condition when Hayate marked the end of the match, announcing her as the winner.

She opened her hands and the wire fell from Sakura's figure but she didn't stood, her head low and tears pooling on the floor under her face, Ino didn't move either, watching the precious person that she had now destroyed. "I'm s-" she wanted to apologize, her vocal cords trembling with the effort it took to construct another thought that wasn't full of Sakura's tears.

"Ino," Asuma's voice cracked the space between them as a lightning bolt, reaching the deeper parts of her soul. "Come, it's over now." She opened her mouth to protest, to let him know that she will try to make amends, but he spoke again, preventing her to voice her wishes, "it's not the time. Let her heal on her own."

It was a slap, at least in how it hurt, Ino flinched and glanced back at where Sakura was standing, head still low, Kakashi patting her head reassuringly, Ino had made that, Ino had stripped her from basics reassurances, she had built her while infants only to destroy her when she saw fit. She had been cruel and convinced herself to be doing it out of respect and not out of malice, she had wanted to hurt Sakura as much as she did when she abandoned her, destroying her identity in retaliation.

Ino Yamanaka went up the stairs while fellow Konoha-nin glanced at her sideways, hiding her head under her bangs despite being unnecessary since, from their distance, they couldn't see how tears fell down her cheeks.

* * *

He found her in the corner of one of the resting rooms, forehead resting on her knees and hands embracing her legs, seeking solace. She had not stayed much after her fight's conclusion, biting her upper lip at the display in the main screen where her name was, followed by a _winner_. It was around the middle of the next round –Tenten jumped high and heads moved back to appreciate her movements- that she slipped away and vanished in the background's lack of light, disappearing behind an open door.

It had been smart on her part to seize the others' distraction to get away, harsh looks of former classmates were what followed her arrival at the upper floor and not even Asuma's reassuring pat on her shoulder made her look up from her bangs. He had seen her shadow move from the corner of his eye, it was pure luck really, but he hadn't been able to follow her retreating form, the match between the girl from Suna and Tenten was over all too quickly and his name popped out in the next draw.

It was weird to fight against a girl and weirder to do it in such a soundless fashion. There has been no cheers for him, which wasn't something he minded, but Chöji's shy congratulation seemed wrong without Ino boisterous nature. He had told Asuma that it would be a good idea for the teacher to find his pupil and have a talk, but he had brushed him off because he needed to stay in order to support Chöji if his name was to be chosen for the next fight.

At that, Chöji was quick to grab his forearm, pressing his fingers against his flesh with careful strength, closing the space between them and bringing his mouth close to his ear, his warm breath tickling the sensitive skin there. "Go Shika, I'll be fine."

"What?" Shikamaru blinked without understanding what was asked of him, Chöji pressed more forcefully his hold, white pressure marks contrasting with the brown of his skin.

"Go and find her, I have to stay for my match." He spoke in almost a whisper, Naruto's shouts against Kiba providing their conversation with some needed privacy. Up to that point, none of them were sure where Ino stood in their comrades' eyes, what she did was nothing worst than what Shino had done to that boy from sound, but Sakura was one of them. It was clear by the way that Naruto screamed and looked at Ino during and after the fight that he was deep in his negativity towards her, for which Shikamaru couldn't blame him, but he also believed that it wasn't his place to take sides when Ino and Sakura's relationship was concerned.

He glanced back at the match that was currently happening, straightening the lines of his shirt and a scold forming in his face. Kiba and Naruto were weirdly evenly matched, Naruto showing a strength that he lacked back in the Academy, he wondered if team 8 will be as harsh in their disdain towards Naruto if Kiba was to lose, but then again, Naruto was an idiot, not particularly cruel.

He wanted nothing more than to object and stay alongside Chöji to offer his own support. He wasn't up to the task, he decided, furthermore, out of the three of them, he was the worst possible option when it came to both giving comfort and providing comfort to Ino specifically, so he failed to see where the logic in sending him was.

It was better to leave her to her own devices, she will know how to put herself together enough to drag herself from her sulking to Sasuke's bed in the infirmary. Ino will undoubtedly tell him all about her most recent feat, boasting her victory against who knew to be her best friend once and now defeated rival, Sasuke's weak teammate, Sakura Haruno. Regardless of his logical decision, there was a bitter taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with the exhaustion he felt. He had not being able to rest properly yet, finishing the second round of the test just the day before. He yawned and leaned his weight on the wall when Asuma's elbow pushed him to the side, "go, Shikamaru."

He was about to protest, he really was, but both Chöji and Asuma's expressions darkened, leaving small room for arguments. He allowed the scowl to deepen before reluctantly taking the same path he saw Ino take, passing Sakura and giving her a sideways glance. She was red on her cheeks and her eyes shone still, her hiccups subdued sometime during Tenten's match, Sakura watched the match below, a small smile on her lips at Naruto's antics, her skin drawn with the red lines of Ino's wire.

Following Ino had not proved to be an easy task, she was quiet when she wanted to, surprisingly enough. Having seen where she went gave him a really small advantage because the door took him to a corridor with many doors, and there was no distinguishable Ino-sound behind them. As so, he was forced to open the ones he could and pick inside quietly, but his efforts provided no fruition, so he had to repeat the process once more, this time caring less for secrecy. He only saw her because she had yelped at his entrance, but hadn't pay further attention, perhaps believing he was someone else. He took short, quiet footsteps towards her, expecting her to snap at him for interrupting such an intimate moment, but she picked at him from her armpit and covered her face again in between her arms, there were tears in her skin and wetness on her clothes. She looked small, a ravishing contrast to her previously shown cruelty.

"Don't be mean…" it was surprising how soft her voice was when pleading, Shikamaru had pictured her asking for favors, but it paled in the face of reality. He felt no pleasure at the pain in her tone, no desire to push her further down with witty remarks. It was the very core of their relationship and yet he couldn't bring himself to enjoy her fall from grace.

He sat next to her, his legs stretched and arms crossed, back firmly pressed against the wall, he positioned himself far enough not to touch her, even by accident, but close enough to be able to hear her if she whispered; it was the closest he will allow himself to be from her. "I won't…" he responded because he considered himself to be an impartial person. "You were cruel."

Ino groaned and finally brought her face away from the warmth of her own embrace, rolling her eyes widely despite the wetness on her skin, as if it didn't break the purpose of her annoyed gesture. "Really," she sniffed, "Shikam-"

"-Wait, you didn't let me finish," and surprisingly, she shut her mouth, sniffing again and glancing openly at him, her arms still tightly grabbing her knees, still looking to comfort herself, still seeking for warmness. "You were cruel," he repeated and saw her deflate a little bit more, "but you weren't unfair."

Ino blinked, perhaps she hadn't grasped what he was trying to say, which wasn't her fault, she was mopping in the corner of an empty room after winning the match she had wanted to have since a little kid, she wasn't exactly at the best state of mind, "I mean…" he continued, "you took her seriously enough to bring her down in your own fashion. You played with her mind and she couldn't handle it, she'll grow from that."

"But – I was so… and she's a comrade and she- she is…"

Shikamaru licked his lips, nodding, "yes, I never said that what you say was right. I said it wasn't unfair. You knew her insecurities and exploited them to get under her skin and defeat her, it isn't something unheard of."

"But Sakura-"

"She'll get over it." He licked his lips again, watching her nod at his words, her lips still curled down, the light green color of her eyes barely visible in the lack of light in the room, "did you think about it?" He asked, unable to withhold his curiosity, it might not be the time for him to indulge in this need, but he wasn't known to be patient with Ino.

Ino looked at him without responding, it might be that she didn't know what exactly he was asking that she thought about, he opened his mouth again to expand, but she nodded before he could, the response clear. "It's just an excuse I told myself to feel better…" it was soft the way the words left her mouth and it didn't occur to Shikamaru until then that the formation of Ino-Shika-Cho had led Ino into believing herself not good enough for another team.

"Uhm… might be true," the reassurance was out of his mouth before he could actually think about it, it wasn't far-fetched to see the logic behind Ino's words, but it wasn't as if Sakura wasn't the next best kunoichi of their class behind Ino. Maybe Sakura was the only name that had popped into Iruka's mind when forming the teams since Ino-Shika-Chö was a given, but if Ino hadn't been forced into it, well… hard to imagine her going another place than in a team next to Sasuke and Naruto, unless Sakura brought something more to the team that Shikamaru wasn't aware of. Regardless, it was clear that Ino had used the shock of her statement to manipulate Sakura, not allowing her to think deeper about it, because the claim couldn't sustain itself if analyzed. The truth was that Sakura was there and Ino was not.

And as it stands, Shikamaru had to admit that Ino had played marvelously the game, a strategy that not even he was able to look through until it was over, it's true that Ino knew Sakura like the palm of her hand and used that knowledge to her advantage –what would she do against someone she didn't know as well, he wondered-, but if that's true for Ino, then the same could be said the other way around, but Sakura hadn't known how to use her cards, too used to only get Ino's reassurances. "Do you think she will forgive me?" Ino asked him, tightening her hold on her legs.

"Did you?" He replied with a question on his own, "when she left?"

Ino sighed.

They stopped talking after that, comfortable enough to stay in silence, Shikamaru breathed in and out through his nose, closing his eyes for a moment, enjoying the quietness and darkness of the room. Ino sniffed once or twice in the span time of perhaps ten minutes, so she still was deeply sad. He could understand if his mere attempt at consolation proved to be unsatisfactory, but took comfort in the fact that she, at least, hadn't reacted violently at him.

How much time it passed was a mystery, he could have sworn that he just closed his eyes when Asuma shook his shoulder as to wake him. He had drooled on his shirt, his skin pinking in shame, Ino was seated where he left her when drifting off, still awake, still sad and beside him, still. It was, if anything, an improvement. It only took to receive the disdain of her peers. Laughable.

"You didn't tell me you won your fight," she scolded with no real malice, almost asking permission to use her usual tone with him, he blinked the tiredness out of his eyes.

"Oh…" was his response, and he glanced at their teacher, "Chöji!" He was fully awake now, filled with guilt and adrenaline. Asuma stopped him by shocking his head, Shikamaru's heart sank.

"He's alright, it was quick, ego more bruised than body."

"Oh no… I should have been with him!" He slapped his forehead, chastising himself for falling asleep, his exhaustion from his previous encounter with the limits of chakra depletion and minimum rest felt more an excuse than a truthful reason, but he knew better than to argue that with the people around him.

"I'm sorry," Ino mumbled without touching him, it still surprised him how those words didn't make him feel what he often fantasized they would, "where is he?"

"Outside, he's fine. Don't worry over him. Now listen," he quickly changed his expression into something more serious, "you both missed the last part of the preliminaries, your names were drawn again with whom you are to fight next." He licked his lips, glancing at both of them with contemplation, it was clear by his body language that a speech was making its way out of his throat, pushed down again by share force of his will. Perhaps it wasn't the place, perhaps the time –Ino was still affected enough to be nice to Shikamaru of all people, but it was obvious that it will, eventually, come. "I'll make this short and you two will go back to your house to rest. Two days. That's all I'm giving you." He breathed, "Shikamaru, you will fight Dosu, he was the one who defeated Chöji, he's from sound, but you knew that already." Shikamaru nodded, "we'll discuss his techniques later. Ino, you will fight Temari, now, she's unbelievably dangerous, I don't want your back almost broken like Tenten did, she's also a long-range fighter, and you don't know her at all like Shikamaru does Dosu. So, in your case, we will need to prepare carefully our strategy, what you used with Sakura won't work with her."

Ino's mouth suddenly shut, her hands trembling, "oh Kami…"

"Don't panic." Asuma said, "I won't let anything happen to you. Plus, you two have a month to prepare."

"Oh, oh Kami," Ino was not to be deterred from her fear, new tears rolling down her eyes, "I can't… I won't… she broke Tenten's back?!"

"No, Ino-"

"She -I can't –I'm not good –oh Kami…"

Asuma kneeled in front of her, hands on her shoulders, his thumb gently caressing her skin to reassure her, "you need to rest." He whispered, his expression gentler, "don't worry about Temari now, I promise Ino, I won't let her hurt you." He said.

Shikamaru wondered if Kakashi had made that same promise to Sakura before Ino came, crushing her down.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ino was referred to be -on Sakura's recollection when friends and by Asuma Sarutobi, Ino's sensei, an exceptional ninja. The first official Fanbook stated that she was the best female ninja in their class, second-best behind Sasuke. The reason why Ino was canonically instituted as the best kunoichi during the Academy was both to establish her rivalry and superiority to Sakura while infants, and to "show" how much Sakura has improved in the chünin exams. Mirroring Naruto and Sasuke's dynamic.
> 
> During their combat on the chünin exam, the only reason why Sakura was able to break free from Ino's jutsu was thanks to her second personality, a trait that disappeared soon after. As it stands, and while Ino's character was solely created to give Sakura deeper characterization, I don't see how Sakura is at the same level as Ino was during that period, even if the fight ended in a draw. 
> 
> Both showed the same skill at taijutsu, which is either because Ino didn't train at all on it during that time, her score being a B when graduated, or because Sakura (who scored a C) trained her butt off –which she canonically didn't-. Furthermore, strategically speaking, Ino showed to be superior when trapping Sakura with her hair. Sakura having a second personality that saved her from Ino's jutsu is no feat. She didn't develop it while training nor it was the visualization of her will, it existed previously and was "awoken" by Naruto's cheers during her combat.
> 
> It's true that is shown in the first Databook that Ino had three points in "latent ability" while Sakura had four (which is a projection of how much she could grow from the point they were already in), which isn't to say that Sakura was bound to surpass Ino, but that she had more room for improvement. That's proved right when in the second Databook Ino still "surpassed" Sakura in everything but genjutsu, intelligence, and hand seals but in the manga is stated they were even in the chünin exams. Should stats matter in a fight? Not particularly, Sakura has always been smarter than Ino and yet Ino canonically outsmarted her during their fight. That being said, I'm not committing the same crime Kishimoto made for the sole purpose of giving Sakura a "development" he wasn't bothered to show until then. 
> 
> Why did I erased the hair Ino used in canon to trap Sakura but kept the nature of her attack (that is, being able to hold Sakura down with basically the same system) will be –sort of, justified in the next chapter.
> 
> That's my take in their canon fight, you're more than welcome into leaving your views in the comments, and while you're there, let me know your thoughts on the chapter.


End file.
